Patina
by Sonjouou
Summary: At 8 PM, he was safe at his aunt's home, or as safe as he could be at seventeen and the center of war. At 9 PM, Harry comes to Number 12, bloody, older by five years and pleading for asylum. The tale he tells to the Order is almost unbearable to hear.
1. Gefangenschaft

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Eins

Gefangenschaft

* * *

[**Hope Volume Two**

But in this heart of darkness

All hope lies lost and torn  
All fame, like love is fleeting  
When there's no hope anymore

[**Apocalyptica**

* * *

The tale begins a cold and lonely night in the month of July. Within the next few hours, as the clock had dawned nine o'clock, the neo-pagans would celebrate the holiday of Lughnasadh. It was an old holiday, an Irish one, that held no bearing on the true world of magic – except those who were _old_-fashioned and Gaelic. Thus it would be ludicrous to expect that the streets of a Roman settlement would be adorned with decorations for the holiday that occurred on the first of August. There were none, even on London's streets, the settlement being so close to Ireland and all. 

The closing day in question, the last of July with August only three hours in the future, was a glum day. It had rained for a solid block of thirteen hours and brought an unseasonable chill to London. The city had never been the warmest, but it was still unusual to see so many people wearing coats when it was summer.

There was a dingy part of the city (as was in all cities) that did not hold dingy city inhabitants. While yes, this writer must confess, there were the usual denizens of the slums – the drug dealers, the lazy bastards, the unfortunate, and the whores – where were also the ones who remained their because of a duty they were foresworn to hold. The ones who did not belong in the world of normal, bustling, confusing-as-hell and crowded-as-hell London made a poor living out of a bedraggled and ugly home on a worthless street called Grimmauld Place.

Grimmauld Place did not always belong to the worthless – far from it, in fact. In the waning days of the Tudor dynasty, it had been the magical equivalent to Downing Street. It had housed Ministers of Magic, foreign dignitaries, and the wealthiest wizards and witches in Britain who had decided to move from their manors to the hustle and bustle of London. Sometime between the reign of William IV and Victoria I, Grimmauld Place had fallen to the non-magic folk, except for the home at Number Twelve. That had _always _belonged to the House of Black, and should have always belonged to them, with the only sidetrack being the death of the last heir.

On the street tonight, on this unhappily cold July night, a man in shabby clothing moved through the chill with a shiver or three. He was only thirty-eight, thirty-nine, maybe, but a good decade older from a condition with no cure or treatment. His hair was graying, for clarification, and his face was lined with tragedy and a personal agony. Silently, he pulled his thin robes tighter towards his thinner form, and moved towards the suspicious gap between number eleven and number thirteen on the once proud street.

His name was Remus Lupin. Once the title professor had been given to his name, and there were three or four who still insisted on calling him that. He did not enjoy being at Grimmauld Place (he would be concerned if anybody but a mad portrait and a madder house-elf did), but had to. He enjoyed walking there, however, as opposed to Apparating. Even with the smell of wet garbage and petrol and God knows what else, it was still fresher than the air inside _that _place.

Lupin paused for a moment in his stroll, and his hazel eyes cast a look up at the moon. It was a bad habit of his that was explainable in a gruesome way. The moon was gone completely – new moon. Best time of the month, in his opinion. There was no trace of his celestial aggressor – though Lupin was not poetic enough to describe the moon as such.

The brief pause, while explainable and safe (considering the wizard slash werewolf held his wand very firmly in the inside pocket of his robes), caused two events to occur concurrently. One was an exhale of breath by Lupin that was a both a sad sigh and a simple exhale. The second involved a pair of hands clutching at his arm and the whispery, agonized plea, "_For the love of God, help me_."

Now, Lupin was not a stupid man (and this writer apologizes for suggesting such a notion) and he was an alert man. Seven years of friendship with two pranksters as their only means of escaping detention had caused him to develop such a talent as a boy. He had never before had anybody creep up to him without his knowledge and lay a hand upon him. Thus, with a very sharp intake of breath, the howl of not-so-human instincts in the back of his mind, and the spinning around to point his wand in the face of whomever had gotten close to him, Lupin discovered a number of very unusual things.

If he had expected an assailant, he had received one with all the strength and vigor of a sick kitten. The man was hollow-cheeked, pale as a wraith, and skinny enough to be called anorexic or starved, and posed absolutely no challenge even if he was a wizard. He was also very dark of hair (very _long _of hair as well; the mess of black must have reached his waist at least if properly combed), very tall of height, and covered in a very thick coat of very red blood. The face was a patchwork of wounds – bruises, cuts, scars, burns, and something purple-green that could only be of magical origin.

The man was also dressed similarly to a rich man. His suit was silk, his shoes Italian, and his long coat looking vaguely militaristic. All of these lavishes, though, were covered in dust, soot, an amalgamation of various things that had mingled together enough to form an unpleasant smell, and human blood above all else. Threaded beneath his coat on a belt was a sword than an expert would classify as a Renaissance long sword.

His eyes were green. Not normal green either – Evans green, the sort of green that belonged to one bloodline and one bloodline alone. Beneath the fringe of too-long hair, there was one scar that millions of people knew by sight and urban legend.

Lupin starred. The man clutched his arm harder, pleading louder. "Please, for the love of God, help me Professor . . ."

"_Harry?_"

There was a very logical reason for the shock, disturbance, and disbelief in Lupin's voice. The man holding him tightly by the arm was no younger than twenty-three. The man inhaled, forced something that may have once been a smile, and continued in the whisper-soft voice, "Professor, please . . . I-I really need help." For the first time, Lupin noticed he was shaking furiously, and cold to the touch.

"But how –?" Lupin silenced his question just as it slipped from his mouth. Now was not the time for inquiries. He nodded and put his wand away, walking slowly with the man (Harry?) clutching tightly to his arm and looking around with frantic paranoia. With speed that would have humiliated a snail, they walked towards the spot between numbers eleven and thirteen, waiting only a minute for the House of Black to appear. The man in the bloodstained suit made no appearance of surprise at the bewitched home coming from nothing. With a crunch of disturbance, it confirmed a little something in Lupin's heart that he was clutching onto Harry Potter.

_What on earth happened? _he thought as he examined the person next to him, _Why does he look so old? Did Voldemort do something? _No, he knew. There was a rigid schedule in place to watch Harry at Privet Drive that would not disappear until midnight after his seventeenth birthday (meaning three hours still demanded the guard). Kinsley had been watching him tonight. The Auror would have reported immediately to both the Order and the Ministry if Voldemort or Death Eaters had gotten close enough to Harry to do _this. _

"Is it still safe?" he asked Lupin weakly, "Nobody can get in without invitation, right?"

"Of course not; come on, you look like hell." Lupin didn't hear the sardonic laughter.

Grimmauld Place still looked much as it had when it had first fallen into the Order's reluctant hands, although two years had passed. It was hard to remove twelve years of neglect and disrepair even under the best of circumstances. Yet Molly Weasley and her children (as well as Hermonie and Harry to degrees) had done some good to the evil building. It no longer smelt of mold, for one, and the walls had been repainted a pleasanter eggshell white as opposed to . . . whatever the original color had been.

"Molly! Tonks!" Lupin yelled out, his temporary ward cringing as he looked around the entrance. Something akin to horror was flickering inside his eyes, a whimper completely unlike Harry rising up in the man's throat. "It's an emergency!"

The women were there in an instant. Tonks held her wand, her eyes looking at Lupin first with grave concern before turning to Har – the man on Lupin's arm. Molly looked scandalized and milk-pale at the both.

"Gorblimey," swore Tonks, moving to grab the man easily and wince as her hand quickly was covered in blood and whatever else clung to his coat, "Who is this fellow?"

"How'd he get into the house?" Molly asked in half a shriek.

"He knew it was here. Dumbledore must have told him." But Tonks had given a small scream. Her hands had pulled up the man's fringe, revealing the telltale lightning bolt scar there. The man shrank in Tonks's hold, clutching his shoulders desperately and pleading, "Please, please help me! I went through hell to get back, I did and . . . and I just need to know it's safe here!"

"Harry?" Tonks asked, her eyes changing reflexively to their natural (and rather unappealing to everyone but Lupin) color, "Harry, is that _you_?"

"Please just make sure it's safe!"

It was only after quite a lot of time had passed, when one in the morning had dawned on the grandfather clock and a pot of tea boiled on the stove, that things settled into a semblance of non-chaos. Many of the Order were clustered into the basement kitchen, excluding young Ron, Hermonie and Ginny (to their intense and furious dislike) while Harry, or the elder doppelganger of the Boy-Who-Lived, was crouched in a chair holding onto a cup of tea as though it were his last anchor to all that was good and sane. His hands shook violently, his arms wrapped around the scabbard of the long sword he carried. More tea got on his lap than in his mouth.

Nervously, everyone stood around him. Tonks looked at Lupin for guidance. He cleared his throat softly and asked, "Harry, is that you?"

"In the flesh," he mumbled into the cup of tea, "Whatever's left of it."

"What _happened_? Kinsley didn't report anything when he left his post at eight."

Harry looked up. His face, after the mess of blood had been cleaned off, looked worse. This writer could spend several sentences detailing exactly how his face was bloated from punches but sunken from a lack of food and sleep, how most if not all of the skin was scarred, and how it only _just _resembled the aged face of Harry Potter making him resemble James Potter at the time of his death, but she instead will write the following. He looked very much indeed like he had come from the bowels of hell.

"But," he repeated several times, each more wizened than the last, "But I've been missing for _five years_, haven't I? I-I must have, right?"

Many shocked and scared looks were exchanged. Tonks coughed awkwardly. "Harry, Kinsley saw you five hours ago. I saw you yesterday, remember? You ain't been missing for five years, for certain . . ."

The look she got back was frightened and dead. The teacup he held shook horribly with a combination of shivers and a psychotic twitch. Harry opened his mouth, and forced a fake grin. "Few hours, huh . . . only a few hours." He swallowed what was left of the tea.

"What happened to you? You're . . ."

"Twenty-two," he mumbled into the rim of the cup, "Five birthdays, almost nineteen hundred days . . . with _him_."

Lupin felt a migraine pulse in his temples. He did not think he was alone. Awkwardly, he laid a hand on Harry's to comfort him, and felt the boy (young man at twenty-two now, not sixteen-just-turned-seventeen years old) twitch spastically under it.

"Voldemort did this?" Many flinched at the name. With eyes still as green as Lily Evans', Harry looked at Lupin, and smiled just a bit. He even gave something like a hollow laugh.

"I wish," he said, disturbing them all, "_Gethsemane did._"

"Is he a Death Eater?"

"That'd be simple though," Harry said with more of a black laugh, "Nothing's simple when it comes to me, though, is it?" Nobody answered. It was the sort of silence where one suddenly became telekinetic – you knew in your heart of hearts that everybody agreed with the statement, but nobody would dare to raise a confirmation of this fact. Used to the quiet, Harry made no qualms. He merely held the teacup, curled on the kitchen chair, shoulders slumped and head half-down, looking defeated and broken and _scared_. "He's a harbinger. They guard things; secrets, powers, emotions, memories . . . _things _that people lock in their minds because they don't want to see them again. I-I'll explain . . . but could I have another cup of tea? Some more sugar, please?"

"Of course, dear." Molly never let her eyes leave Harry's aged face. It wasn't right. End of term, at Dumbledore's funeral, he had been sixteen. Prematurely glum and wise, yes, riddled with things that no adult should see, yes, but sixteen nonetheless. A month and a half later, he was twenty-two. Five years younger than Bill, same age as Percy.

He smiled when he got the tea, though his hands were still shaking. Lupin looked at them. The left was wrapped very tightly in bloodied bandages, and the fingers were calloused and bent crookedly – broken too many times, and healed rather badly. He drained most of it in two gulps and, in a deadpan voice, began to speak.

* * *

The electronic clock made an annoying noise. It had just turned eight o'clock. Harry only looked at it blankly. Nine o'clock at night. Three more hours and he would never have to see the Dursleys again. The thought did not cheer him up as much he thought he would have. As a child, he had thought gleefully about the day he turned eighteen (an adult in the muggle world), where he would pack his bags, flee down the street, and go off to make his life as far away from Privet Drive as humanly possible. 

Even though it was now his seventeenth birthday – a whole year sooner than he had prophesized as a seven-year-old in the cupboard under the stairs – and it was dawning to the end of his seventeen year imprisonment with the last of his blood family, Harry knew that what awaited him was nothing like what he had thought. He was going to leave Privet Drive, return to the Burrow for Fleur and Bill's wedding, and then leave to destroy Horcruxes and a serpentine bastard called Tom Riddle.

It didn't settle his stomach. He sat at his desk, arms folded atop it, eyes watching the alarm clock stoically as it changed from eight o'clock to eight-o-one. The clock may have been off time. It probably was. It had once been Dudley's once, after all, and Dudley never left anything working properly. Harry let his fingers twirl his wand around and around between them. The wood felt good in his hands. It really did.

Eight fifteen. Time moved by rather quickly, he noticed emptily. That was curious. It always moved like it was being forced to in the summer – painfully slow, mocking Harry with sadism. He sighed furiously and stood up, pacing around in his room. His green eyes always fell upon two framed photographs on his desk, not hidden by the wads of paper that littered the desk.

In one, a tall man and a redheaded woman danced laughingly in the autumn. He was aristocratically handsome, identical to Harry, except for happiness. She was lithe and sweetly smiling, her fire-red hair hidden mostly by a beret and a Gryffindor scarf. They were either maybe nineteen or eighteen, at least. Just out of school. Pity; they only had two years left to live at the best.

The other showed them even younger. More recently out of school. About as old as Harry was now, he thought vacantly, though somehow James seemed taller. It was their wedding. Sirius was there, handsomer than James, smiling wider, laughing.

"Lucky," he mumbled to the people in the photographs, although he knew they weren't. Hell, they were unluckier than Harry. At least he was still alive. With a growl, he sat down on his bed, and examined the cracks in the ceiling.

_**Oh, I don't think they're that lucky. They never met me**_. The voice had decided to avoid the laws of sound. It had come into Harry's head without taking the unpleasant route of moving through his ears first. It had spoken soundlessly; with silkiness and noble-blooded arrogance, and an almost musical and beautiful charm. It was the sort of voice reserved for an opera star or a vampire in a muggle movie.

Harry bolted up right with his wand at the ready. His mind screamed. The wards around Privet Drive were supposed to protect him against Death Eaters and Voldemort – that was the whole bloody reason he was here, wasn't it?

_**Lad, I don't mean harm. I can't harm my apprentice now, can I? What sort of master would I be? The Others would have my head if I did **_**that**

"Show yourself!" he barked. Uncle Vernon grunted in the next room over.

The voice sighed. _**If you wish, apprentice. We should move fast anyway. It makes things easier.**_

A wind blew against Harry's cheeks abnormally. The windows were closed, and indoor breezes did not exist of that caliber. With his wand and the knowledge he was no longer underage, Harry said, "_Protego_." That made him feel safer. Not by much, but enough.

Something akin to fingers grabbed his arm. Harry turned his head around with a cry, swinging a fist. It was caught easily, and bent backwards with a snap. His cry was louder now, strangled pitifully. He looked up with narrowed eyes and a bitter, battle-ready snarl on his face. He saw a thin face of a man, with graying blonde hair and pair of eyebrows that were neatly trimmed. He held Harry tightly and grinned. Now, this writer should interject here; this is _not _the one that had spoken to Harry in the musical voice, but of course the young wizard had no way of knowing such information. He, unlike you readers, did not have the pleasure of listening to a rambling writer.

"Lemme go!" Harry snarled, and pointed his wand at the man's throat. "Who the hell are you?"

No fear was in his eyes. Easily, he raised up his fingers to the wand, and snapped it in half. And Harry realized precisely how stupid he had been by not casting magic in the first place. As Harry starred at the phoenix feather still connecting the two bits of useless wood together in . . . in horror, the man said in a bored voice; "Shall we be going now Potter? I don't like working at night. Too cold."

"My wand . . ." he choked. How . . . moronically stupid of him! He got his wand broken!

"Your own stupid fault," the man said, and muttered something else. It was not a language that Harry had ever heard before, and one that he hoped never to hear again. It was scratchy and guttural, archaic and arcane and just so full of magic that Harry felt his breath hitch up into his throat and his body go completely numb. Unable to move, his knees buckled and he fell down onto the wooden floor. The gray-haired man held him firmly by the wrist, while Harry's drooping eyes could only see the man's shoes. They were leather boots, scuffed at the edges but polished at the toes. Harry could tell – he could see his languid reflection in the steel.

The world went dark. Harry went completely numb, weightless, soulless, nothing whatsoever. Feeling was absent to him. For a moment, perhaps, he thought it was true, adrenaline-infused bliss.

But when it was over, the feeling had gone, and Harry was left collapsing to his knees onto very hard stone. His stomach rose up into his mouth and his skin was ashen. Harry did not dare take a breath. He felt if he did, than everything he'd eaten for the last three days would come spilling out of his mouth. Eventually, however, his physical state got the better of him. He inhaled, coughed violently, and tasted the eggs he had eaten three days ago.

"Everyone feels like that their first time, lad." Something grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. Harry stumbled, reluctantly leaning against the gray-haired man who had been the one to snap his wand. A thin smirk played about his thinner lips.

"Who _are _you?" Harry asked, pushing himself a little further than he should have. He gagged, but was not sick – much to the man's relief, one would hypothesize. "Where am I? Why'd you bring me here, huh?"

The man adjusted the collar of his scarlet robe. Beneath that, he wore a fine pinstripe suit of gold and sable silk with a golden coin worn around his neck as a way of a choker. Harry could tell a number of things were stored in the pockets of his robe, but could not actually see any bulges or lumps in them. It was an odd sight.

"Inquisitive mind," he said, "I image he'll like that."

"That's not an answer to anything I asked," Harry said sardonically, and the man gave a bit of a strange smile.

"Yes, I suppose it isn't . . . I am Wynn Sambuca, man of business for His Grace, Liege of Arcady." Harry blinked a little at the odd name.

"Sambuca? Like the drink?" Wynn observed him strangely. His eyes were quite a brilliant color, Harry noticed, though every time he examined the eyes they appeared to be a different shade or hue or color in general.

"Why would you know?" he asked Harry strangely. His demeanor seemed to have shifted very rapidly, from the unsmiling person in Harry's tiny bedroom at Privet Drive to an uncle-like, paternal figure. His aura, if Harry had any aptitude in that particularly obscure area of magical sensations, had shifted entirely. A well-trained eye would see it had gone from burgundy to blue. He pulled a watch from the pocket of his suit and clicked it open. "No time for chit-chat, I'm afraid. The Liege probably wants to meet his new apprentice soon before Annalisa leaves . . . come along then."

Harry grabbed his arm tightly and narrowed his eyes. Wynn looked with that same strange gaze and oddly luminescent, oddly brightened eyes. He waited for Harry to speak, and the wizard did so in a furious undertone, "_Explain this __**now**_"

Wynn grinned. "The Liege does a better job."

"I'm not going to wait." His knuckles cracked as he balled his hand into a fist. "_EXPLAIN!_"

"Fine, fine," he waved his hand, and Harry found himself letting go of Wynn's arm and unclenching his fist. How such a thing occurred, Harry didn't know. He was the one who could break out of the Imperious Curse by shear well, and yet . . . a breeze of a magical suggestion had passed through his head, and Harry found himself standing calmly but confused by Wynn Sambuca's side. "The Liege has been putting off choosing an apprentice for a long time now, and His Majesty has finally forced him to do such. Normally, of course, the apprentice _should _be about six years old, but he has no patience with kids – I'm sure you understand? Ah good – and he has selected you, my good man."

Anger boiled up very quickly and exploded just as fast. His green eyes narrowed, his face twisted, his fists clenched and his voice a roar, Harry stared Wynn right in the fact and yelled, "_AND NOBODY THINKS TO ASK MY OPINION ABOUT THIS!_"

"Why should we?" The confusion on Wynn's face was genuine. So was the despair and fury on Harry's. Wynn adjusted his robe a little more. "Now then, lad, the Liege expects to meet you in a few hours, and I daresay you need to tidy yourself up a bit. He's a . . . persnickety man in the area of aesthetics." Wynn looked away from Harry, prompting him to shout in anger to explain more of _why _everybody seemed to decide everything else for him, and yelled two more things in the old and richly magical language. It left Harry feeling just as weak-kneed and dizzy as the first time he heard it, but he recovered quicker.

He stood back up, holding his sides to keep the sick from welling up, in time to spot three women in uniforms moving down the hallway. They looked . . . almost identical to each other, to be frankly honest. All wore the attire of a French maid, obviously designed by a man who enjoyed the motif but without so much decency (prompting a rise of color in the cheeks of the young wizard, who had never seen so much as a girl's bare shoulders), all with thick blonde ringlets and fair skin, but with different hue of eye. One had blue, one had brown, and one had a dark viridian.

"Could you please escort Liege Arcady's new apprentice to his chambers, and see that he looks . . . presentable," (Wynn looked at Harry's unkempt hair, baggy clothes, and rather unshaven face with distaste bordering on arrogance), "For His Grace?"

All three women bowed lowly. In identical deadpans, they said, "At once, Sire Sambuca." The viridian-eyed girl held Harry's arm, while the other two lead him away, without much aide on Harry's behalf. Midway down the hallway, when Harry had given up the struggle against the servants, he asked of them their names.

"Alouette," the blue-eyed one said.

"Colette," said the brown-eyed girl.

"Mariette," said the third of them.

_Wonderful_, thought Harry in horror as he was dragged further.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

This is my first fanfiction so I'm sorry for any mistakes in it, and I hope that people like it! And always, a review would be appreciated; constructive criticism is always welcomed!

[**Statistics**

[_Pages _10

[_Paragraphs _99

[_Lines _420

[_Words _4,507

[_Characters _25,408

[_Font _Times New Roman

[_Font Size _12


	2. Herr Gethsemane

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Zwei

Herr Gethsemane

* * *

[**I Want Tomorrow**

Dawn breaks; there is blue in the sky.  
Your face before me though I don't know why.  
Thoughts disappearing like tears from the moon.

Waiting here; as I sit by the stone  
They came before me, those men from the sun.  
Signs from the heavens say I am the one.

[**Enya**

* * *

The home of the Liege of Arcady was a fine home indeed. It was built, of course, in Arcady, on the shores of the most beautiful ocean in the world where the water glittered finely in any sort of light. The beaches were clean, the slope leading to them gentle, and the manor itself a fine home a king would have been proud to own. Of course, the Liege had bought it from a previous king – Albert IX, also known as Albert the Scholar – when magic had not been necessary to make him young. The home was sustained, of course, by magic itself.

If a muggle architect could be given the luxury of examining the manse (known by the name of Château de Samedi) he would with gusto begin listing off the qualities. The structure itself resembled a rural château, one with no fortifications or towers, but a quaint, cottage-like look to it. The design was obviously that of Louis XVI, ivy encrusting the outer walls, roofs of wood and walls of stone.

Of course, the Liege of Arcady didn't like listening to architects too much. They rambled, a bit more arrogantly and often than this writer, which was quite a feat. And, unknowingly shared by his unhappy apprentice, Harry Potter also shared this dislike of architecture. He was far more concerned with being pulled down the hallways of Samedi by three maids, finally culminating in the arrival of a rather large bedroom.

It was not grand, nor unnecessarily lavish. It held a bed, some empty bookshelves, a wardrobe and a desk, but that was the limit of the furniture. All were of a practical design, crafted from rosewood. A window was above the desk, locked now, overseeing an herb garden that led to roses and, in the not-too-far-off distance, the ocean. Harry had never been to the ocean before; the Dursleys had never thought him worthy enough to go to the Atlantic's shores. It was a very beautiful sight, he had to say. The thought penetrated his head even through his anger at being dragged here against his will.

Mariette sat Harry down on the bed whilst her brown-eyed doppelganger (whose name had slipped Harry's mind; they all looked too damn identical) moved towards the wardrobe. They unlocked it easily, though he couldn't see what was inside of it.

"It is not our place to correct you, Sir Apprentice –" began Mariette, her voice monotonous, her gaze avoidant.

"Harry," he immediately corrected, "Just Harry." Mariette looked up. Life seemed to twinkle in her eyes for a moment, but it must have been a trick of the sunlight.

"Begging your pardon, good sir," she said, curtsying politely, "But as a vassal beneath His Grace, we are bound to address you by proper title."

"Yeah?" he asked, "Well, I'm nobody's apprentice yet," he spat, "So don't call me by any title. It's just Harry." Alouette and Colette looked over at their green-eyed fellow, a bit confused, and a bit honored by the luck.

Mariette blushed a bit. That seemed impossible considering her complexion, but she managed it. "I must insist on Sir Harry," she said, avoiding his gaze. Harry sighed furiously, his fists still clenched about his broken wand (his poor wand . . . it had suffered about as much as him), but nodded. She cleared her throat and continued on her original train of thought. "It is not our place to present you with orders, Sir Harry, but we must give you advice upon meeting with His Grace for the first time."

"You must bow before him," Alouette told him kindly, "And hold your right wrist behind your back. Your _right _wrist," she reiterated.

"Do not address him as anything lower than Your Grace or Lord Arcady until he says differently," Colette explained, and pulled something from the wardrobe. He looked around to see her holding a fine emerald tie in her thin fingers. It looked like it was made of silk, and worth more than all of the Weasley's belongings.

"Avoid his gaze directly unless he asks for it."

"If he has Her Honor with him," (Annalisa, as Wynn had mentioned previously, Harry thought), "Do not speak unless she presents you with permission to do so."

He held up a hand for them to be quiet. This all sounded as though he were going to be introduced to a king or duke or somebody of a dead and obsolete feudal system – somebody who'd gotten Wynn Sambuca to abduct him from Privet Drive and break his wand in half. The very last thing he was going to do was give this Liege Arcady any respect at all. "Why am I here?" he asked of them, wondering if he was going to get a clearer answer from any of the three maids.

Mariette looked scandalized. "Why, Sir Harry, His Grace has selected _you _of all the Englishmen to become his apprentice. It is quite an honor. The heir of His Grace will inherit the whole of Arcady and all the power of His Grace. Many would kill for such a prestige."

"But . . . I don't _want _that."

"How could any man not want that?" Alouette asked, just as shocked and horrified as her sister (Harry had concluded the three _must _be sisters of some sort, triplets at least. There was no other way to explain their matching appearances). "Why, His Grace's heir and apprentice will be given the marital hand of the Lady of Mag-upon-Mell – the fairest and most noble of all daughters of His Imperial Majesty!"

Harry choked. His face was red. "_Marriage?!_" He hadn't had anything that had ever resembled a steady girlfriend. Well, he thought vacantly with his blush deepening, there was Ginny – but they . . . with the Horcruxes and Voldemort and a royal hell upon earth summoned . . .

The maids gave him funny looks. He let the issue drop, cleared his throat awkwardly, and continued, "So – so when am I meeting this . . . Arcady."

"Once you are presentable," said Mariette. She meant it as no insult, considering her subservient attitude and position, but it still made Harry scowl in slight offense. He turned his head to see what Alouette and Colette were pulling from the wardrobe, presumably for him to wear. It surprised him. The clothing was all very fine – the sort of attire one could easily imagine a young dignitary or royalty to be clad in. None of it, he assured himself, he would wear. The blue-eyed maid (Alouette? Colette?) was holding a long red coat similar to a military dress uniform. The shoulders bore golden epaulettes, was that were they were called? The other brown-eyed maid held a knee-high boot, examining it for the slightest of scuffs.

Harry inhaled and looked at Mariette. "Where is this place?" he asked intently.

"Château de Samedi," she answered instantly, "On the shore of the Ganeden Ocean. It is the official residence of His Grace, Liege of Arcady, and his apprentice." She smiled at Harry. It wasn't a warm smile; it was an imitation of one by a woman who had forgotten what a true smile looked like. "It was purchased from His Imperial Majesty Albert IX in the year 1467 by His Grace."

Harry was silent at the date and the name. One too many questions filled his troubled head, and instead of asking any of them, he held his temples in his palm and looked at the remains of his ruined wand. It pained him considerably to see such a fate behold the instrument that had saved him from Voldemort four times, and Death Eaters countless others. He could not believe this, not at all. In less than, what, the course of an hour, he had been taken from his bedroom by some strange individual named after distilled liqueur, had his wand broken, and told by three identical and half-mindless maids that he was expected to be apprenticed to somebody he did not know and _married _to a girl whose he had never met.

The summary was brief, depressing, and mostly accurate, and served only to increase Harry's despair. He racked his fingers through his hair, and was interrupted in his thoughts by green-eyed Mariette.

"Sir Harry, if I may be as brass and bold as to ask, why are you wearing those spectacles? What do they amplify?" He looked at her. She looked genuinely curious. Her two sisters moved deeper into their tasks, perhaps ashamed at their brass and bold sibling (and, perhaps for confirmation for confused readers, the three girls were indeed siblings, all born from the sire Eon Clarke, although Harry will not find out such for many weeks at the least).

"I can't see without them," he said slowly, "You've never seen glasses before?"

"His Grace possesses a pair," Mariette said just as slowly, "But I and my fellow vassals were left to assume them to pleasure the eyes of Her Honor and the other Ladies. His Grace appears quite dashing in them." Harry made a noise that sounded vaguely like an '_hmm'_ but was not. "You are blind without them, Sir Harry?"

"Well, sort of."

"I shall ask Sire Sambuca for correction of this abnormality." Mariette gave a long curtsey, lifting up her too-short skirt and making Harry blush scarlet, and left the bedroom chambers with a click of the door. He looked at the other two maids, and found they had laid out an outfit grand enough to make Draco Malfoy look like a London beggar.

The coat was beautiful, as far as garments went, and the boots had jewels perched on the side of them. There was a pinstriped vest, gold as galleons, and a rather odd-looking hat that resembled a fedora with a strange, elongated feather in the brim. He looked at the two of them, and both bowed their blonde heads lowly.

"I can't wear that," he said simply and stupidly. Alouette looked up, offended.

"Why ever not, Sir; it is a popular fashion that will indeed impress His Grace and Her Honor, should you be graced with her presence this evening."

"But they're . . . Malfoy clothes," he said, stumbling for a reason and settling on a rather poor one indeed, "I'm not some pompous idiot who's going to wear a _feathered hat_." Alouette looked at Colette, or vice versa, and they both returned their gaze at him.

"What would be better suited to your tastes, Sir Harry?" Choice; that was a thing that Harry had not grown quite accustomed too over the years and was surprised at being offered. He looked at his own clothing – a pair of jeans rolled up at the hem, and a shirt that hung off his shoulders rather noticeably – and then back at the two maids. They blinked in unison, awaiting his response.

"Jeans, maybe? Or robes – wizard's robes?" Obviously these people must understand magic. He had been brought here by nothing other than magic. Yet he received blank stares. They exchanged an expressionless look, sighed deeply, and Alouette said as kindly as she could in a voice devoid of emotions.

"Sir Harry, we were instructed to present you with attire that would render you presentable to His Grace and whatever audience he had within his company. I am afraid we not only fail to understand what you ask of us, but are unable to provide you with such. We implore your utmost forgiveness, Sir Apprentice." They both curtseyed low and shamefully, and Harry's scowl only deepened viciously. It was forced to increase in its animosity when the third of their number returned, holding a small eyeglasses case in her hands.

"For you, Sir," she said, bowing her head deeply and handing the case to him. Harry took it cautiously and opened it. The glasses inside were not spectacles at all, but rather pince-nez with golden rims and shinning frames that he held with care. Carefully, he exchanged his own glasses (the old coke bottle frames that he'd had since he'd thought himself a muggle) and put the pince-nez on with some small difficulty. Although the world had been clear with his other glasses, it startled him just how crystalline the room and the maids had become when they had been exchanged. He blinked several times, scratched the spot behind his ear where the frames had rested, and mumbled thanks to Mariette.

"Now, Sir Harry, Sire Sambuca has requested that you bathe before entering the presence of His Grace," Mariette said, and pulled him to his feet. The other two spun him around and ladled the clothes they had chosen into his arms until he could barely see the rest of the room. By the shoulders, Mariette and Colette led him into the adjacent bathroom, and shut the door behind them.

Immediately, he dropped the pile of clothing onto the sink and looked around with a scowl that seemed to be becoming his trademark. It was a fine bathroom, as far as bathrooms went. It was not lavish enough to be on par with the Prefect's bathroom at Hogwarts, but it contained the essentials. There was no shower, however, only a Victorian-style bathtub with golden claws for rests.

"Damnit," he snarled, and slammed his fist on the counter. It released only a bit of his pent up anger and confusion, but the action's greatest success came from the throbbing pain in Harry's hand. Nursing his knuckles, he moved to fill up the bath (noting with some minimal bit of pleasure that it was like the Prefect's bath, including floral-scented bubbles alongside of water) and examine the locked window longingly. It was too small for him to have escaped out of anyway, but he certainly would have tried his hardest.

This writer must interject her personal philosophy in for a moment. She is of the belief that most aggression and problems may be solved, or at least forgotten, when one is enjoying a bath. This is true in Harry's case, at least, which can be considered a splendid thing, as the wizard got so very opportunities to relax. He sank with a sigh into the water, eyes drooping shut by the scent.

There was a plan being concocted in the recesses of his mind. He may have not had the chance to escape his fate when it came to Voldemort (no thanks to the prophecy and Sybill Trelawney), but he would certainly not be roped into this disturbing game with enigmatic Liege Arcady, Wynn Sambuca, and the eerie French maids. He'd find some way to get out of this apprenticeship, either by diplomatically conversing with Arcady, or insulting the man enough to throw him back to his unhappy life in Surrey and England.

Although, some snide and selfish part of his mind said, this didn't seem so bad. He immediately silenced the self-serving voice with a vicious glare, and went under the water to wash his hair. He collected the pince-nez when it floated off, and shook them dry. He had them back on his slippery nose in time to see, in his great and utter horror and embarrassment, Colette walk into the bathroom with her eyes averted.

"What the – get out!" he shouted, burning furiously. Colette shook her head at the mirror.

"My deep and utmost apologies for your modesty, Sir, but I have been permitted to ensure that you are clean and presentable." She knelt down beneath the sink, opened the cabinets, and retrieved a bottle of shampoo, two bars of soap, and a rather uncomfortable looking loofah. His eyes widened furiously.

Thus, the Boy-Who-Lived was defeated by a monotonous maid, her loofah, and lavender shampoo. It was not a battle he would like to relive. The aftermath also included the girl, who may have given a giggle on an occasion or two at his absolutely mortification, tackling the infamous Potter hair with a brush and comb, finally succeeding in flattening it to his head. Sometime after this, a furious Harry sent Colette hurrying out into the consoling arms of her sisters who he still failed to tell apart and locked the bathroom door, breathing heavily.

Even after that, Harry found himself standing in front of the mirror, dressed unhappily in the gaudy ensemble that the maids had picked out. His skin was pink and raw, and probably would be clean for the remainder of his life, his hair about chin length now that it was flattened. He looked ridiculous, he truly did. All the clothes fit him finely, in a manner that made him suspicious and confirmed that this was probably not the first time these people had thought about him for Arcady's apprentice. Whilst Harry's opinion of himself was far less than self-confident, this writer must say that, as a lady herself, the clothes fit him quite nicely and dashingly. Particularly the coat, but this writer does indeed have a bias for a man in a coat with epaulettes.

He glared viciously at his reflection. He felt like a Malfoy, almost, dressed in clothes of an unnecessarily fanciful nature, and had absolutely refused to put on the feathered hat. Instead, he twirled it in his over-cleaned hands, annoyed beyond measure. The snapped halves of his wand were in his pocket, just in case he could muster the faintest bits of magic from them. He doubted he would try, though, remembering Ron's broken wand in second years.

"Might as well get this bloody thing over with," he snarled to himself, and walked out of the bathroom. The trio of maids was there, and all curtsied low at his entrance.

"If I may be as brass and bold, Sir Harry," Alouette said to her shoes, "You look quite handsome."

"A man worthy of the apprenticeship of His Grace," reiterated Mariette.

"His Grace does not expect you for some minutes now," said Colette, "Shall we entertain you with a tour of the château until then?"

"Um, sure." He'd never worn boots before, always a pair of trainers that were both old and overlarge for him. It felt exceptionally odd to be wearing a pair of shoes that fit him properly, and the same went for clothes. Well, it just felt odd to be wearing the clothes – he doubted that there were many seventeen-year-old boys who wore a three piece suit outside of a wedding or a funeral.

Mariette took him by the arm once more and dragged him down the halls annoyingly. He noticed there were not very many other servants, and wondered if this was usual for manor homes. The only one he had ever been in had been Grimmauld Place, occupied by a worthless waste of space and Hermione's pity.

"His Grace is not very eager for an apprentice," Colette said whilst Mariette pointed out the staircase up to the libraries and the corridor that led to the dining hall.

"Well, I'm not too eager to become an apprentice," Harry mumbled, trying to pry his arm out of Mariette's surprisingly tight grip.

Colette continued, having either ignored Harry's statement or not heard it. He thought the former. "His Majesty has decreed that all Master Mages must have one apprentice during his or her life. It is called the Law of Heirs."

"Her Honor has just selected an apprentice as well," Alouette said firmly, "She was pleased to finally find one. Lady Sari will make a fine Magistrate one day. She seems very fair."

"What's the difference between a Mage and a Magistrate?" he asked, despite himself. The three exchanged a look amongst themselves, and suddenly all became very interested in their clicking black Mary-Janes.

"Pardon our surprise, Sir Harry," said Mariette, "We are not used to the ignorance of Englishmen. A Master Mage, such as His Grace, is a practitioner of all magical fields. He or she delves into them without prejudices or fears of the outcome. His Grace is the greatest of all Masters. His Majesty has personally asked His Grace to join the court at the capitol, but His Grace loves the sea too much."

"A Magistrate," began Alouette, picking up where Mariette left off without a beat, "Is a political analyst. He or she examine and refine the laws of our great country and deal with the dignitaries and catastrophes of the government. Lesser Magistrates handle the affairs of the criminal world. They are trained in the art of mental manipulation." At once, all three girls spat on the floor, and looked rather surprised when Harry did not copy them immediately.

"So, a Mage –"

"_Master _Mage."

"So they're like wizards," Harry said, more to himself than to them, "And Magistrates are like lawyers and judges." _With Occlumency_, he added privately, not at all fond of that branch of magic.

"We are sorry for our ignorance, Sir Harry, but we fail to understand you," Alouette said sincerely. He gave an apologetic smile.

After a few more minutes strolling down the corridors, where Harry was introduced to the front foyer and the entrance to the rosary (a greenhouse, he had been told, except solely for roses and creatures of His Grace's choosing), Mariette said that Liege Arcady would be expecting his new apprentice's company in the parlor and proceeded to drag him down two more hallways and a flight of steep steps he almost tripped on to a room the girls stopped at. Only Mariette led him forward, through the fine rosewood door.

The room beyond was much the same as the bedroom Harry had first been brought to. It was not outrageously decorated with finery and artifacts, like Dumledore's office (to a degree). There was a bookshelf full of books that had all obviously been rebound, judging by their uniform spines with soft leather and silver lettering, and a table where two pots of tea and two cups were set. A lounge was near a chess board, and a piano was pressed near the wall and the window. A flute and violin rested upon the top of the piano. There were no portraits or photographs – the walls were bare. The only decoration seemed to be the soft curtains on the window and the vase of roses on the windowsill.

Two people were in the room. Well, two people, a cat, and one bizarre little creature that Harry had never seen before. The cat was ordinary but massive, a calico with a white tail that twitched where it slept on top of the chair by the chessboard. The creature was a small (about as tall as Harry's head), blue thing that resembled a cabbit but with far larger ears, and was sleeping serenely on a pillow on the lounge. It woke up when Harry and Mariette entered. Its eyes were black with a faintly bluish hue.

"Mieu," it said in a high voice, catching Harry off guard.

The two people looked at Harry and Mariette, leaving their teatime conversation behind. The woman was youngish, maybe as old as Professor Lupin, with chestnut hair pulled into a bun and a navy pea coat buttoned all the way. Her long skirt hid her shoes, and her blue eyes were behind tortoise-shell glasses. She looked like a younger version of McGonagall, in honesty, though with a cold glare, not a stern one. This was Annalisa, no doubt, the Magistrate.

The man was not old at all. He could hardly have been older than Harry. His hair was very long and a brilliant red, falling past his waist with strands beside his thin face. His clothes were very fine – a three-piece suit, with an elongated coat that would have touched his heels, and Victorian-style boots. His features were all very handsome in a way that suggested nature had not been the only component in their acquisition, and his chin was held up high. With the hair and the brown eyes (no, not brown, reddish-brown) the exceptions, the man would have passed for a Malfoy.

Harry stared him straight in the eye. The woman seemed put off by this, but the man merely patted her hand, smiled, and stood up.

"So you are Harry Potter," the man said, and Harry recognized the voice. It was silky and arrogance and almost musical; the voice that had spoken to his mind in Privet Drive, "It is an honor to meet you at last. I am Liege of Arcady, and this is my dear friend, Higher Magistrate Annalisa DuPont. Won't you take a seat?" He indicated a third chair at the tea table that had not been there before. Never breaking eye contact, Harry sat down, but passed on taking the cup of tea.

"Why did you bring me here," Harry asked of him coldly. Annalisa gave a gasp and snapped out, in a voice that could only have belonged to a lawyer, "You insolent bug!"

"Anna," Arcady said as a warning, smiling vacantly in the same manner that Mariette did, "Don't defend my honor; I can do that myself." He drank a little tea. "Wynn surely must have explained it to you. I intend to make you my apprentice and heir, by the insistence of King Raymond."

"Without asking my opinion on _any of it!_" he snarled. The rage that he'd developed since the summer he turned fifteen was back in his voice, "Shouldn't your apprentice get a chance to choose!"

"No," Arcady said flatly, and the answer was so sudden and so callous that the rage seemed to die instantaneously. Harry breathed heavy once, and felt normal, all of a sudden. It wasn't natural, and only magic the likes of which he had never seen before was to blame. Arcady took a few more sips of tea and spot nasally, "I examined many boys and girls alike for somebody who could handle the strain. They were all disappointments – especially that one bratty boy from the Netherworld. The Overlord's son. Oh and that awful girl, the greedy thing. I finally found _you_, nearly three times the age of a normal apprentice, adventurously suicidal, temperamental," Harry felt his anger built up again, but die down instantly once again, "But above all, the only candidate that is worthy of my tutorage."

"You picked an annoying boy indeed; even the girl was better. _She _had manners, and a decent parentage," Annalisa said curtly, eyeing Harry with intense distaste.

Arcady ignored her to. "So, Harry, you can see my position. It is unlikely I will ever find somebody so perfectly molded to this job as you, and, quite frankly, your opinion on the matter is about as important to me as the dregs of this teapot." He tapped the china longingly.

Harry glared with fury beyond description. His knuckles were white and his nails dug deeply into his palm. The teapot exploded with a burst of accidental magic, of the same caliber that had gotten a fairly ugly woman blown up to the size of a blimp, but Arcady paid it no attention. Both the cat and the blue creature sniffed at the smell of tea and moved to lap it up.

"You took me from my home, where I'm the _only thing _that's going to stop people from dying," Harry said, breathing very heavily, each word painfully coming out, "And plan to trap me here, just because you don't want to search harder? What if I don't participate in this plan of yours, huh?"

Arcady's eyes glittered brilliantly. They had changed, Harry noticed, no longer brown. They glittered like flames; a deep, dark orange-red that burned like Voldemort's. But kindly, without a hint of malice, he drank his tea, dropped three cubes of sugar in, and said, "Than I will have the utmost pleasure of stripping you of your soul, your sanity, your _humanity, _and letting you roam about the countryside as a bloodthirsty monster feasting on the flesh of virgins and children. I've seen Nikoli do it to three of his students, and I'm _very _eager to see if I can do it myself."

Harry's blood ran cold. It was not a normal cold, by any stretch of the literary imagination. This was where his blood stopped dead in his veins and crackled, expanding the veins in the back of his wrist and turning his skin the bluish-black of frostbite. This was the cold the Dementors brought to him, without any safety from his wand, but without the torture of hearing his parents scream their final words.

No, instead, Harry's green eyes widened with a fury and a horror as he watched his left hand twitch spastically, the knuckles bulging, fingers cracking and elongating, nails growing black and long and razor sharp . . .

"Stop!" he yelled, voice shaking despite every bit of bravery he had exhibited all throughout his life, "Stop! I'll . . . I'll be your apprentice." In an instant, he was normal, his hand nothing more than a hand that shook, mourning for complete steadiness it would never again exhibit.

"Good," said Arcady cheerfully, but Annalisa was suddenly giving Harry a look of great and terrible pity, "Now we have that out the way, I feel that, as a proper master, I should abolish such an ugly thing as titles. Harry, you may address me as Adrian Gethsemane – one or the other will do, but not both. It will save us a lot of time."

Harry nodded, full of spite, and a hatred that had once been solely given to Malfoy and Snape. Though this man, this Adrian Gethsemane, Liege of Arcady, had never killed anybody dear to Harry, he had robbed him of anything that should have resembled a proper life. Or whatever proper life a prophesied savior could hope for.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

The reference to the Overlord's son is a reference to Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, which I do not own. That is owned by Atlus and NIS America.

Woo! Second chapter. And since the release of the Deathly Hallows (finished in 6 hours, 23 minutes, because I wanted to brag and due to my lack of a life), I'll attempt to incorporate the events into the fic.

[**Statistics**

[**Pages** 11

[**Paragraphs** 101

[**Lines** 458

[**Words** 5,030

[**Characters** 28,230

[**Font** Times New Roman

[**Font Size** 12


	3. Willkommen

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Drei

Willkommen

* * *

[**Angels**

This world may have failed you,  
It doesn't give you a reason why.  
You could have chosen a different path in life.

[**Within Temptation**

* * *

"He forced you to stay?"

Harry looked up from the cup of tea. About fifteen or sixteen limps of sugar were being dissolved into the brew, making the smell more sickly sweet than anything else. More than a dozen pairs of eyes watched him, horrified, sympathetic . . . scared of the fact that he looked so very different than he had mere days ago. Harry spoke into the cup rather to them. It was easier to speak to his murky reflection than to people.

"Everybody works in the same way," he said with a frightful and quivering sigh of sorrow, "They use things they think are useful. Some people just use useful people, instead of useful things." He looked up at Molly Weasley. "Are Ron and Hermonie alright? What about Ginny? Are they okay?"

"Of course dear," she said hesitantly. Molly wasn't quite sure that she wanted the three of them, two of her own womb, to have to deal with this. She could barely handle seeing Harry so broken, terrified, and just so bloody _old_. She wished that Dumbledore were here, calm as could be, able to explain and fix everything. Of course, Dumbledore had not been a miracle worker, just an uncommonly powerful and benevolent wizard, and there was not a thing in the world he could have done to correct five years of natural aging. But the mind in mourning remembers things strangely, and Molly had always been of the opinion that Dumbledore could solve everything.

"Thought about them a lot," Harry said, sounding a bit more like himself, "Missed them, you know. Couldn't write, though I wonder how that would have worked with this _time _thing." He drew his legs up closer to himself, and drank some of the oversweet tea. His hands were shaking worse. One hand moved towards the pockets of his coat, and pulled out something small and wrapped in cheesecloth. "Could I see them? I think . . . I mean . . . they have a right to know. I'd be mad if they came back and I wasn't told . . ." He almost looked on the verge of tears. Lupin placed a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. He twitched violently, looking up frantically, but relaxed just as quickly.

Molly did not like the idea of having her two youngest, as well as a girl she considered family (and probably would be. Molly wasn't stupid; she saw the way Ron looked at Hermione when the girl had her back turned) having to sit with the rest of them listening and dealing with the reality. She shook her head. "I'm sorry; but I won't."

"_Please_," Harry choked, "Mrs. Weasley, I know you don't want them to see me like this . . . beat up and stuff. And, I suppose, older," he said in a whisper, "But, they'll want to know. They really will. They'll find out one way or another." It was not begging, though one could certainly make that assumption easily. It was more a wish; the expressed desire for the company of pseudo-family slash dear friends beside him, instead of just caring people.

She bit her lip, but nodded and left the kitchen. Her footsteps felt leaded. She climbed the steps of Grimmauld Place, ignoring the obvious and probably dangerous creak in each one, one paranoid gaze checking to see the front door was locked securely. Molly thought of how . . . childish his voice sounded. Harry may have aged (how was it possible? How could he have gone from seventeen to twenty-two in a matter of hours, but still repeat that five years had passed) but he seemed younger than he had when Molly had first seen him. Broken, perhaps, was a better word; pushed to the point where terror was the only thing cultivating in his mind. But childish was all that Molly would allow her mind to dwell on.

She heard arguing as she approached Ginny and Hermione's room. Her son and Hermione were arguing; much like how Lily and James had bickered in the few times Molly had seen the two before their brutal deaths.

"Your damn cat ate the rest of the Ears! How're we supposed to find out what's going on now, Hermione?"

"He doesn't know any better!"

"He knows enough to sniff out two Animagi, but he doesn't know enough to tell the difference between an _ear_ and _cat food_?"

Molly opened the door without knocking. It was a privilege held by all mothers, to the great mortification of their children. She was spotted with the image of her youngest son trying to hide something long and flesh colored into his pocket whilst Ginny gave an innocent look that fooled the Weasley matron. Hermione held her cat, but let Crookshanks drop onto her trunk and give Ron a stern look when he feigned innocence. Molly, for the moment, didn't care, but would go on at a later date to ban Fred and George to give them those horrible Extendable Ears.

"What's going on?" Ron asked almost at once, though rather emptily. He was used to not hearing anything about the Order's going-ons. Ginny, however, looked at her mother's face.

"What happened?" she asked. At her heels was Hermione's inquiry, "Did something happen to Harry?" The tears in Molly's eyes gave it away. Ron, white beneath his freckles, demanded, "He's not _dead_ is he?"

"How can you suggest that!" screamed Hermione, but it was very obvious they she suspected such may have been true.

"No, no of course not!" Molly said, wrapping an arm around Hermione's shoulder delicately to console the poor girl, "No, he's . . . he's downstairs in the kitchen, with the rest of the Order. He . . . well, come along now, don't dawdle!" Ginny, though pale, moved to comfort her bushy-haired friend when her mother left. Hermione shot Ron a look that was strange to an outsider, understandable to the both of them, and Ginny to an extent. What, precisely, merited strange behavior in Mrs. Weasley? What had happened to Harry? Surely, not Death Eaters, not at Privet Drive. That was the only reason he was in that horrible home in the first place.

A million possibilities pulsed through Hermione's head. Was it Dementors again? Harry could ward of those with his Patronous easy. Was it the Ministry sticking its nose in matters it shouldn't, just to puff out their chest and pretend they were doing something? They had been acting strangely as of late, after all. Maybe nightmares; with Voldemort so powerful, maybe it was a nightmare they couldn't get him out of? But then, why was he in the kitchen and not St. Mungo's, or a bedroom here at headquarters? She mulled over each thought, the next worst than the last, Ron's looks of pleading explanation failing to sink into her vision. Her lip was bit tightly.

"Mum," Ginny asked, forcing composure, "Has something happened to Harry? He's alright, isn't he?"

Mrs. Weasley did not answer. The silence was more damning than any words she could have formed. It made the weight of every horrible prediction (although Hermione would use the word scenario, despising Divination and all its fake mannerisms) sink lower onto all of their shoulders. Ron's hand found Hermione's and held it tightly, for both her comfort as well as his.

The kitchen was crowded. The crowd was circled around one particular chair, and one particular individual crouched in the chair on the balls of his feet, hunched over. Fond of the books as a girl before Hogwarts, Hermione thought of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. The posture was identical to how she pictured the miserable thing in her ten-year-old mind. The crowd of Order members moved at Mrs. Weasley's annoyed snaps, so Hermione let go of Ron's hand and the pair moved up to see.

There was a young man – twenty something years old, dark-haired, beaten black and blue across the face with an ugly burn and magical scar smattered across his countenance. There was a sword – a sword, of all things! – pressed against his abdomen protectively, a bloody coat over his form. He looked up, hands shaking furiously as it clutched a teacup, and his eyes were a brilliant bottle green behind a mess of too-long black hair.

Only one individual in the whole world possessed such green eyes. But that individual was a good three, four years younger than this man. Hermione knew enough of magic, despite her heritage, to know that could have been remedied. She gulped, her face pale, and tears once more blossoming in her eyes.

"Harry? Is that you?"

Almost at once, the man had left the table, letting the teacup smash to the floor. He pulled both Ron and Hermione into tight hugs, shaking furiously by a neurologically impaired reflex, nodding viciously, almost sobbing but not quite managing to go through the process right. He looked at the both of them, smiling widely, but letting the smile dim as he had to crouch lower to see eye-to-eye with even gangly tall Ron.

"What the bloody hell _happened_?" Ron choked, "You're . . . you're as old as Charlie . . ."

"Twenty-two," Harry corrected. His voice was jittery and broken, shivering with fright and paranoia in every word. With sorry, he looked at his two dearest friends, and Ginny. Hermione saw he had something in his hand wrapped in a yellowish cloth. "You're all . . . still the same." Ah, the defeat in those words! Enough to mirror that of a soldier who had to report that his battalion was dead, their mission had failed, and the enemy had gotten the information to tip the war in their favor. Perhaps more-so, since Hermione had never heard the latter used in anything but cinema.

"What happened? Why're you . . . what the hell happened?" Ron suddenly snarled at the Order members, "Why were you _doing anything_!"

"Not their fault," Harry mumbled, "My own stupid fault, for being unlucky, maybe. Gethsemane's fault." His fist clenched furiously. The fingers were all bent at odd angles. They'd been broken and left to heal on their own; functional, but unpleasant to look at. But it let go suddenly, and Harry's shoulders slumped as he went back to the chair he had come from, clutching onto the sword scabbard like a small child would hold a teddy bear after a nightmare. "You missed a bit of story . . . Cup of tea, please, thank you, sorry for the mess . . ."

* * *

Five minutes of conversation with the Liege of Arcady had been enough for a lifetime. Harry never wanted to see the smug, self-serving bastard again . . . but knew that he had, with a verbal plea to stop the painful Transfiguration of his hand, signed his soul over to the devil. And what a handsome devil Adrian Gethsemane was, although only women and a select bit of men were of that opinion. Harry, however, was not. He left the parlor and Gethsemane and Annalisa the minute that Gethsemane waved a hand permitting him, and slammed his fist into the wall. It hurt more than it should have, considering it was his recently normalized hand.

His life, painful as though it had been in Britain, was gone. No more Quidditch, Ron, Hermione, _Ginny_, again. No more Death Eaters, Voldemort, and prophecy, said the selfish portion of his mind, but it should not have interrupted. Harry ground his knuckles into the wall very painfully, breathing heavily. Where was _his _say in all of this?

"Sir Harry?"

It was Mariette. He looked up, and shoved his hand into the pocket with his broken wand. "What?" he barked at her, and she shrank. He didn't really care.

"It is traditional time for the afternoon meal," she said, and Harry blinked a little in surprise. It was lunch already; he hadn't even had breakfast. For that matter, he didn't remember it getting to sunrise either. A look at the closest window, however, showed that it was bright and sunny and obviously midday. "His Grace is dining with Her Honor, but it is of concern that you should eat something to."

"Not hungry," he snapped, and began to walk down the hall. Mariette moved with a fine speed to match his. She held her hands folded in front of her.

"Sir, it is not my place to say, but I was employed in the home of Lord Walker before I was employed by His Grace, may God bless his name, and the Lord's young apprentice was killed by his own body. He was a student of the occult, as you are, good Sir, but his meals were irregular. I blame myself to this day. Mages are demanded from by the arts they employ; the metabolism, Sir, its changed."

Ignorant of the ways of the world he was now forced to reside inside of, Harry did not know how much or how little a maid should know. But anybody else would be sure to spot that Mariette knew a bit too much of the ways of the Master Mage than a monotonous servant girl. It did not matter for the moment, for Harry's mood was so black that he only took the words at an empty value. He stopped and gave a very angry sigh.

"Why do you work here?"

"I am paid by His Grace. I don't understand your question –"

"No," Harry said, annoyed, "Why did you choose to work here? Why not with that Walker fellow, or somebody else? Why _here_, why with _him_?"

"Chose, Sir?" Mariette blinked her empty viridian eyes. "Choice, Sir Harry, is not a privilege that I may afford. I am paid well and given board. That is why I am here. I do a job." She held Harry's arm carefully. "Please, Sir Harry, Oswald has made a wonderful meal. It will do you some justice, if I may be as brass and bold as to say . . ."

He forced questions out at Mariette while she pulled him towards the dining room. Where was this place, this Château de Samedi, what country, providence, just anything to allow him to ignore the crushing realization that he was bound to serve as an apprentice to that fire-haired cocky asshole. Mariette was more than kind enough to answer for him. Although her voice was deadpan and her movements mechanical, somehow a bit of life seemed to have been interjected into those actions. How such a feat was possible while still containing the robotic quality of her life, Harry was unsure of.

"We are on the shores of the Ganeden Ocean, with the most beautiful water on the entire planet. From the Château, there is the road that, naught fifteen miles down, is the town of Rivage. I am sure, Sir Harry, you will become acquainted with the town in due time." Her finals words sounded a bit like an omen in his mind.

In due time. He was stuck here, like he'd been stuck with the Dursleys for ten years. Only this time, there would be no Hagrid to take him to Hogwarts, no hope for a relative to come and whisk him away. He was stuck, as some _sir apprentice _to the Liege of Arcady – whatever hell that title actually meant. Harry clenched his fist tighter. When had he gotten so defeatist? This wasn't him; Harry Potter would try to find a way out of this mess and get back and deal with all the things he had to deal with.

He was quiet until Mariette pulled herself from his side to open the doors to the dining room. It was not refined, and had a rather modest table in the center with a rather immodest amount of food upon it. Few people sat around it, and the ones that did included some more servants, Harry guessed. There was a man in a leather apron covered in grass stains who obviously must have been the gardener, and a lady in a long black dress where dusty handprints had been smeared upon it rapidly several times. There was also Wynn Sambuca, the gray-haired man of business for Gethsemane who had broken Harry's wand.

A quiet entertained the people at Harry's arrival. Used to this from years at Hogwarts, he moved towards the table, but the woman in the black dress stood up, curtsied and said rapidly in a voice like old parchment, "Begging your pardon, Sir Apprentice, but it is improper for you to dine with the vassals beneath His Grace. Mariette does not know this; it was customary for her previous employers to have all dine together."

More etiquette; it tasted like poison in Harry's mouth. He shook his head, "I really don't mind; I'm used to eating with a lot of people."

"Let him eat," voiced Wynn, holding a mug of either beer of whiskey, "You'll have plenty of time to force regulations down his throat later Olethea." The woman in the black dress gave a bow of her head to Wynn but did not take his words for much.

"Begging your pardon, Sire Sambuca, but if we were to allow the apprentice of His Grace to dine with us lowly servants, we will be destroying countless centuries of careful formation of social barriers. We need to respect these barriers, regardless of the wishes of a young man – begging the deepest pardon, Sir Apprentice."

Harry, however, had had enough of listening to people make decisions for himself. He moved passed Mariette with a defiant gait, sat down, grabbed a plate, and began to fill it with anything he saw that looked appetizing and was within range. Olethea gave a muffled sort of scream that was, as it sounded by this writer's description, melodramatic and unnecessary. Wynn gave a smile as Olethea protested a little move, prompting Harry – while holding a roll – to look up at her and say coldly, "I'm only this apprentice thing by force, and I'm not going to sit by and let you put me on a pedestal. Not again, at least; it's fine for me to eat here."

Subconsciously, he also missed the feeling of eating with friends and a pseudo-family about him. At Hogwarts, the Burrow, and Grimmauld Place – the only three places in the world he had remotely found himself enjoying – he had always been eating with a large number of people. Whither or not he was aware of this desire for companionship during a meal was debatable, but he detested the thought of, perhaps, taking lunch in that bedroom by himself. It reminded him too bleakly of his room at Number Four.

The woman he had sat down beside, a girl at or around Ginny's age, gave him a nervous smile and bowed her head. She had a round face, blonde hair, and eyes of a startling violet-blue. Her apron was identical to the one that the gardener wore, except a bit smaller and dirtier with huge pruning shears stuck in the front pocket. She extended a nervously shaking hand, "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir," she said in a high voice with an accent he recognized by sound, not country. Harry shook the hand.

"Please, no titles," he said, picking up a pitcher to pour himself a drink. It was normal water, though it smelled strongly of lemon. "Just call me Harry." She blushed a little and smiled. Her teeth were crooked and overlarge for her mouth with a great deal of food stuck between them.

"I am . . . oh, goodness, I hate these titles to . . . Sub-Gardener Alice Drysi. I'm new here to," she said brightly, starved for good conversation. Olethea looked on with deep-seated horror and seemed about to say something when Wynn told her to be silence and enjoy her food. Alice looked at Harry's face, squinting a little. "You look a bit familiar . . . Maybe, are you from Cardiff to?"

"You're Welsh?" he asked, surprised a little bit. That explained her accent. She nodded vigorously.

"Oh yes indeed! I'm very proud of it! Cardiff is very beautiful, but I suppose this place looks a lot nicer. More flowers, for one thing . . . were there a lot of flowers where you came from Harry? Oh, sorry, where did you come from originally? England, Mister Sambuca mentioned I know, so does that mean you went to Hogwarts?"

"Yeah," he said with no small amount of regret, "I'm seventh year, in September." Or would have been, said the miserable part of his mind. That had grown in influence since Cedric's death.

"That must have been _wonderful_. I'm a Squib, you see; my father was very unhappy, he's pureblood but he married a muggleborn, the whole family thought it was a bit of a curse. One thing led to another, and now I'm here! You'll like it here in Samedi. It's just beautiful when all the flowers are blooming." She bit into an apple with a crunch.

"Your hand okay?" Wynn asked suddenly, and Harry looked at it. The left one, the one that Gethsemane had been threatening to Transfigurate, was noticeably paler than the rest of his skin and shook violently when he held it flat. The knuckles were blistered from where he'd smashed it against the wall. Wynn was smiling strangely. "He pulled the bloodthirsty monster bit on you, didn't he?"

"That was a bit? But, my hand –"

"Oh, we're not saying anything against you by being forced to accept!" Wynn said quickly, holding up an apologetic hand, "That's the Liege's favorite trick. God knows, enough of his gardeners wandered around Rivage as – what're they called? – monsters because they pruned the roses wrong. Poor Rodger got the worst of it all." Alice and three others in the leather aprons bowed their heads suddenly, hands over their hearts.

"And people just let him do this?"

Olethea looked scandalized briefly. "Begging your pardon, Sir Apprentice, but there is nobody with the authority to correct a Master Mage such as His Grace. Why, that is a definite breach of all social boundaries!"

"So he can just force people to serve him?" Harry snapped indignantly, his fork held like a weapon of great destructive force, or a wand, "And nobody can do anything to stop him?" He stabbed the slice of chicken with particular force, hitting the plate with a screech of metal on ceramics.

Wynn chuckled blackly. "Lad," he said, holding up his mug and giving a rather sincere and genuinely father-like smile at scowling Harry, "You make him sound like one of those Death Eaters or Dark Wizards you're so apt to deal with. He isn't; he exercises rights that are within discretion set down by the King. By law, he isn't doing anything wrong." Wynn drank whatever was left inside his mug, leaving Harry sitting in a mood of great injustice and self-pity, starring at the chicken as though that was the source of all his recent trouble. "I don't suppose you've been introduced to anybody yet."

"No," was the sardonic answer, "You mean you're going to _explain _something to me?" Wynn stood up and moved to stand behind Harry protectively – how was a mystery even to the man of business. Perhaps some little bit of sentimentality had survived the purge of emotional responses, or perhaps he liked towering over unhappy people.

"You met me," he said silkily, "I am the steward for the Liege. Dame Olethea is his Lesser Magistrate and has been paid to instruct you in ways of law and mental manipulation." A lawyer, Harry thought the title must have translated to, and his shoulders sunk. He had another unpleasant Occlumency teacher, one who – instead of insulting him – would treat him like he was royalty and made of glass. Olethea gave a formal smile, avoided his direct gaze, and curtsied as best she could without disturbing too much of the table.

"The maids you met are sisters; Mariette is the eldest and Alouette is the youngest. Now, the gardeners all wear leather aprons. The man there," (he gestured towards the lean, fit man of about thirty, bald as a baby and viciously scarred), "Is Head Gardener Coud Newman. He tends to the creatures and plants in the rosary."

Wynn listed off more and more people, giving a name and a profession to everybody in the room. It became monotonous after a surprisingly short amount of time, where the faces began to blur together and the names became nothing more than words. Harry gave absent nods to them, picking at the chicken and the water, listening as Wynn explained who did what and who may be teaching him what and when. He felt, above all else, nothing more than a puppet for some man who wanted him to get these abilities and talents and knowledge, without any great consent on his behalf.

Although, said the selfish part of his mind, maybe this will be useful. Maybe this will all let you defeat Voldemort. He obviously wouldn't know any of this information.

"Can I go to bed?" he asked suddenly, interrupting Wynn. The man of business pulled at the collar of his scarlet robe.

"Tired?" Wynn asked, "Or just lazy?" He received a glare for a response, and called out in that strange language for a third time. Perhaps compounded on the bit of torture he received at Gethsemane's hand, the food Harry had picked at returned up to his mouth and he clutched at the tabletop to keep him from feeling sick. Alice placed a careful and gentle hand on top of his.

"Everyone gets a little sick from that," she said, and her cheeks had paled a little bit, "It gets better. I'm sure you won't even notice it once you start training." She sounded a little jealous, but perhaps used to the emotion from the amount of times it had been thrown unnecessarily at him, Harry did not hear it.

Mariette re-entered the dining room, though Harry was curious as to when she had left it. She gave a low curtsy, tipping her curly head to Wynn and the others. "Yes, Sire Sambuca?"

"Could you escort the Liege's apprentice –"

"Please, just call me Harry," he said again, to Olethea's disturbance and Alice's slight giggle. Wynn smiled and nodded. He really was different from the one who had glared annoyed at Privet Drive, or even when Harry had first arrived at the beachside home.

"Could you escort Harry to his bedroom? He'll probably get lost; God knows I still do in this damn place." Mariette curtsied lowly and held Harry's arm until he swallowed the last of the meal he wanted and stood up. Alice smiled very warmly at him and waved a little bit when he left.

"Nice meeting you sir!" Harry did not see that, once Mariette had taken him out of the dining room, both Coud the Head Gardener and Olethea the Lesser Magistrate had moved towards Alice and explained, very clearly to her, that Harry was not somebody to speak to as an equal. He was the apprentice to a Master Mage, the Liege of an entire fief, and would be heir to all in Arcady when Adrian Gethsemane retired or was killed, God pray that never would happen.

Instead, a very sleepy, worn, and headache-suffering wizard was brought to his room by Mariette, who gave her customary curtsy and shut the door with a click. Harry fell down on the bed, marveling in the back of his mind how comfortable it was, and stared at the wooden roof of the cottage-like château.

He wondered how the Order was taking his disappearance. Ron and Hermione must be frantic by now. Everyone must be. Dumbledore hadn't even died a month ago, and now Harry had disappeared – and there wasn't any conceivable way for him to contact them. He'd never heard of Arcady, doubted that if he got his hands on an owl it would get there, and sincerely doubted that the bastard Gethsemane would have anything to do with contacting his old life. Miserably guilt-ridden, Harry turned on his side, and found himself looking at the large blackish-blue eyes of . . . something.

It was the cabbit-like creature he had seen in Gethsemane's parlor. It rested delicately beside Harry's head on the bedside table, cocking its large head on an angle. "Mieu?" it asked, almost with concern. He gave a grin and scratched it behind the ear.

"'lo there," he mumbled absently, most of the words entering the pillow, "Come to gloat too?"

"Mieu!" it said indignantly, and hopped onto the bed. It curled up next to his stomach and slept there, with a few sounds that may have resembled snoring. He scratched its large ears, wondering vaguely what the hell the blue thing was (as it was not large and man-eating, he had never been taught its identity in Care of Magical Creatures), and finally let himself fall asleep despite the brilliance of the sunshine entering the room.

Harry dreamed unpleasantly. He was stuck in a room full of people who all insisted that they call him by a long, obscure but proper title, and impaled themselves on daggers when he made the slightest error in etiquette. He dreamed that there was Ron and Hermione and _Ginny_, staring at him, demanding to know when he had become so Malfoy-like that he had people do this for him. Even as he begged, they did not listen. Ginny glared the harshest at him, and turned to run away into somebody else's arms. All he could do was stand there, hurt and feeling pitiful, dragged away by a French maid and a man in red, towards an arrogant figure.

_**Leave my side,**_ said the figure – the Liege of Arcady, Adrian Gethsemane – coldly, _**And I will set you lose upon those who cared for you. **_

With cold in his veins in place of blood, Harry watched in a dreaming reality, as his hands –

He awoke with a freezing shiver and a hoarse cry. Sweat trickled down his brow and face. He inhaled a furious, shaking and sputtering bit of air, and looked out of the window by the desk. It was open, and a cool sea breeze wafted inside. It smelled faintly of flowers – lilies in particular. Harry sat up, holding his head in his hand until his breathing calmed, disturbing the small blue creature that still slept beside him. It blinked sleepily, yawned, and curled into a tighter ball.

"I hate this place," he mumbled furiously. The wind ruffled his hair and he looked glumly towards the window. On the desk beneath it, a plate of food had been set there – a simple sandwich and chocolate. Next to the dinner he didn't think he'd be touching, somebody had placed a thin ceramic vase with two cut roses. He stared at the flowers. The petals were blue. A note was tucked between the stems. Once he grabbed it, nursing his finger where the stem had sliced his index finger, he read;

_Welcome to Rivage_

_Hope you don't have a bloody awful time working with  
His Grace_

_Alice_

He smiled, and took the chocolate bar. True to Professor Lupin's words, it did make him feel better. He looked at the rest of the desk, to see if anything else had been placed there while he had slept. There was a folder, the sort that belonged in a cabinet containing medical records or an academic transcript, and whose contents unsettled Harry's stomach even though the chocolate eased it.

_Tentative Syllabus _

_Dictated by His Grace, Liege of Arcady, Master Mage, Adrian R.M.L.Z. Gethsemane I Esq., etc., etc. for Sir Apprentice Henry J. Potter_

_Transcribed by Sire Wynn F.R. Sambuca IV, Steward_

_Observed by Dame Olethea K.S. Hermetic Esq., Lesser Magistrate of the Estate of Liege of Arcady_

_Etiquette_

_Ballroom Dancing_

_Fonnic Arts – _

Harry put it down furiously, making a very obvious mental note to correct Gethsemane about his name. Harry wasn't short for anything, let alone Henry. He got enough of that at muggle school with teachers, curious how one boy got the name Dudley and the other something common like Harry. He bit down hard on a good half of the chocolate.

He chewed it, leaning against the windowsill and looking out across the garden and the edge of the ocean just slightly beyond. It was a beautiful sight, especially beneath the light of the moon. He looked up at the sky, and frowned heavily. There were two moons out. One was almost full, while the other – one with a violet-blue light that resembled the color of Alice's eyes – was a sickle crescent. This writer assures readers that, while not fully understanding the issues the moon poses upon the ocean, this particular configuration made for a sweet and non-temperamental body of water when speaking of the Ganeden.

"I wish I could just go home," he mumbled, surprising himself by missing the chaos, hatred, and fear of the wizarding world.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.  
The creature that goes 'mieu' is property of Namco, not me.

[**Statistics**

[_Pages_ 12

[_Paragraphs_ 118

[_Lines_ 511

[_Words_ 5,608

[_Characters_ 31,213

[_Font_ Times New Roman

[_Font Size_ 12


	4. Menschlich

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Vier

Menschlich

* * *

[**Monsters**

It came as no surprise  
You bring me back to life  
Believe me  
You bleed for me  
I'll bleed for you  
I caught you walking through walls  
Drowned with applause  
From a world that makes me crazy

[**Matchbook Romance**

* * *

Harry did not have a watch. There was no clock in the whole of the château, for Gethsemane possessed a very well-known distaste for constant noise, and the ticking of a clock constituted on such matters. An entirely separate issue was the innate sense of time and schedule possessed by the whole of his staff, shared with, and perhaps spearheaded by, him. This, however, did not aide the young wizard one bit. He had managed to fall asleep once again during the night, sleeping dreamlessly, and succeeding in only an hour of deep rest before being gently urged awake. He was far more eager in sleep, however; it was peaceful and quiet and made some sense.

"Sir Harry? Your presence is requested in His Grace's parlor."

Harry groggily pulled himself up from the top of his desk. His neck had a bad crick in it, and his nose hurt from the pince-nez. Rubbing the spot, he blinked several times in a very quick succession, and spotted the blurry black-and-blonde blob that was one of the three sister-maids. Once his glasses were back on, he saw it was Mariette, who had taken a personal interest in the affairs of the wizard. She was holding something tightly in her hands, but he could not see it entirely.

"What?" he asked sleepily, scrunching his nose at the smell of the ham sandwich that had sat out all through the night. He looked up at the window. It wasn't even dawn yet; it was still dark outside and the stars still twinkled like polished silver.

"His Grace requests your presence in his parlor soon, and asks that you dress for training, sir," she said, and moved towards the wardrobe. Harry beat her to it, prompting a disapproving statement from the maid that he promptly ignored. The inside of the wardrobe was actually fairly ordinary. Yes, there were a lot of fine outfits that mirrored the one the maid sisters had forced upon him the previous day, but there were also fairly normal clothes – all, eerily, his exact size. No jeans or T-shirts, however, but clothing that resembled them enough to be passable. No sneakers either, but boots and socks, while a mirror was hung up. His reflection was as wrinkled and sleepy as he felt.

"You can make _His Grace _wait for kingdom come for all I care," Harry yawned widely, scratching the back of his head and cracking his neck.

"Sir," she said, taking a note of the impatient correction at her words and request that she stopped addressing him by the title, "His Grace has cleared off very important meetings so that he may spend the remainder of this week with his new apprentice. It is a very generous action upon His Grace's behalf."

"He's capable of generosity?" Harry asked in surprise, but gave a defeated sigh when he caught sight of his hand. It still shook when the rest of his body was steady. Something worse was bound to happen if he decided to be a prick, "Fine, give me time to dress."

"As you wish, Sir Harry," Mariette said, and opened her arms so that Harry could see what she was holding. It was a square wooden box, rather like a cigar box, but a dark mahogany red, "On behalf of the Wizard Zeldalia, much hope and many wishes are presented to you, Sir Harry."

He took the box with care, never having heard of Zeldalia and wondering if he was somebody that was as sadistic and egomaniacal as Gethsemane, or as stiff as Annalisa. He unlocked the box and opened it, staring bleakly at the insides. It looked rather like a miniature shield, only about the size of a large hand, with spikes around the sides. At the heart, glass shone blue. He stared at it, lifting it up. It felt light as air, but the curved spikes sliced into his fingers.

"I do not suggest breaking it, Sir," Mariette said hastily, "But I'm unsure on what it is. Perhaps you may ask His Grace?" Harry mumbled something doubtful, placing the item back into its box and that onto the shelf in the wardrobe. The blood on his hands was only light and probably would cease soon. Mariette left the room quickly, and Harry changed just as fast. The clothing was the simplest shirt and trousers he could find. His wand, the now broken slices of wood and a single phoenix feather, was placed with more than a little regret on the same shelf as the box, though in the shadows where nobody would touch it.

His eyes looked brighter, he noticed strangely, but they'd always been brilliantly green. Harry ignored it.

Mariette kept her word and was waiting to escort him back to Gethsemane's parlor. She placed her arm around his although it brought a faint hue of color to his cheek and began to lead forcefully.

"There is a holiday coming up in few weeks," she said airily, "His Grace always holds a celebration for it. If I am not as brass and bold as to say, I believe that is when he shall announce he has taken an apprentice."

"Could you talk him out of it?" Harry asked with a sigh, "I don't like honors much."

"Why not? I would be delighted to have a party to myself," she said, emotion creeping into her voice and eyes, "I enjoy my birthday very much for this fact. When is your birthday?"

"Yesterday." Pausing to consider something for a minute, he clarified, "July 31st."

Mariette looked flabbergasted. It was an emotion that looked very strange on her features, which he had grown used to seeing as blank and devoid of anything human. "Just yesterday was your birthday? We must have a party to celebrate! Oswald loves making cakes; you will greatly enjoy it, I'm sure." Somehow, Harry doubted it, but seeing the smile in Mariette's usually stoic eyes forced him to silence. He gave his own grin and nodded dumbly. "You are how old?"

"Seventeen." She smiled sweeter.

"Only a year away from the year of inheritance; you must be very excited."

"Can I ask you something?" he said suddenly, thinking of something. Mariette nodded. "How is Sambuca able to get from Surrey to here? Is it some kind of magic?"

She paused to consider this, taking time to leave his side and open up the windows as they passed. Harry could see that through the garden cut a river leading down into the ocean, and the cat he'd seen in the parlor was swiping its paw into the river trying to get at the fish inside. Sitting, he noticed something distinctly odd about that cat, the way it was perched and examining its surroundings, but couldn't place a finger upon whatever peculiarity it was.

"Sire Sambuca is an unusual man," she confessed at last, making sure that the windows wouldn't blow shut and break the glass, "He is a very good steward. He has peculiarities." She was trying to phrase things in a certain manner, probably so that she would not sound offensive or crude to somebody who was her superior. Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded dully. He had to admit – it was nice wearing clothes that fit him properly but weren't his school robes, for once. "He does business with a lot of people in a lot of places, and travels fast. It is an ability he cannot teach, I'm afraid. If you are concerned about returning to England, you will need Sire Sambuca's permission, and thus need His Grace's consent."

His mood fell a little, but he suspected thusly. Nothing would have been _that _easy. With a sigh, Harry continued to follow Mariette, not allowing her to wrap her arm around his. It felt weird; especially since he had just so recently ended the little hope he had for romance with Ginny. The thought of the redheaded Weasley girl made him blush a little, and his heart sink rapidly. He'd probably never see her again, or Ron, Hermione, or Neville, or Luna, for that matter; hell, at this point, he would have been ecstatic to see Malfoy, just so he could have something to hit and relieve his anger over the unfairness of his imprisonment here.

She left him at the parlor with another bowing curtsy, leaving Harry to sullenly walk through the door on his own and let his eyes fall upon the redheaded Adrian Gethsemane. Again, the man was having tea, his legs crossed, his clothing fine and on par with an executive or Prime Minister in the muggle world. He grinned none too kindly at Harry.

"You look more awake than I would have expected," he said, and indicated the chair opposite of him. Harry took it, but not the tea. He glared furiously at Gethsemane. The man seemed not to notice the hatred in it. "It's come to my attention that you just turned seventeen yesterday. Happy birthday." He toasted the air with his teacup. Harry didn't so much as blink. "I've neglected to get you a present – I was unaware of the holiday until just recently. Perhaps there is something you have had your eye upon?"

"A way home," he said sardonically. Gethsemane's eyes glittered the same fire-color as they had the previous afternoon, and Harry sat up straighter out of some instinctual spike of fear.

"Why squander a perfect opportunity on an inquiry you know is only going to get you into trouble, Harry?" he asked curiously, "You're my apprentice. Anything in the worlds is yours if you really desire it – except, however, _that _request, and a certain few that violate the General Statute of Necromancy."

Harry's fingers curled around the handle of the teacup and he took a sip. He did not particularly want any tea, but found it to be a far better way to stay silent instead of continuing the pessimistic air that had settled upon the richly lit room. He didn't see the little sparkle of success ignite in Gethsemane's eyes. "The tea's specially imported from Wutai; I have a friend or two there, lovely people, a bit strange when it comes to shiny objects, I must admit," he said and finished his cup, "I suppose you're curious as to what we'll be covering."

"Not particularly."

"It's of little wonder why your teachers dislike you," Gethsemane laughed, "I take it that you're probably still adjusting to the difference in time between here and England; that should clear up in a day or two. It's why Wynn does all my traveling for me unless it involves the courts. Until then, unless you really want to, I'd advise getting used to the house and grounds."

This surprised him a little bit. Taking one of the sandwiches on the table and tearing out at least half of it, Harry asked, "You're not keeping me trapped here?"

"Trapped? That's a vile word," he said, sniffing in indignant offense, "And what good would it do? You don't know anybody else except, I daresay, the maids and Wynn; nobody will offer you asylum. Wynn has made sure that the people in Rivage know that a green-eyed lad has become my apprentice. I merely do ask that if you leave the grounds, you only go so far as the town. Beyond it are some rather . . . unpleasant territories for an untrained and useless little boy."

The news was a little bit of a relief. At least he had the freedom to wander around as he pleased, but, as Gethsemane so callously pointed out, there was no place for Harry to exactly run to. He had the impression that if he tried to flee, he'd end up being dragged back to the château and suffering the same fate as some of the gardeners. Harry swallowed the rest of the sandwich. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have selected the one that smelled like seafood.

"This morning, I thought a bit of history might be in order," began the redhead. Thinking of Professor Binns, Harry made a face into the tea and spooned some more sugar into it. He doubted he'd get a good bit of history from Gethsemane, though it probably _would _be better than Binns. "Arcady is the last little bit of law in this nation. Beyond the borders, I doubt many things live there intelligently." This got Harry's attention. He looked up, interest in his eyes to replace the anger towards the redhead. There was a calm, unnatural composure in Gethsemane's eyes. It was the look that belonged in the gaze of a doctor who was forced to give news of the newly deceased.

And thus, with a good deal of interest that was both well-founded in Harry's natural inquisitive nature and the macabre, Gethsemane began to speak and would not finish until sunrise. For the sake of pages and patience, this writer shall condense the lesson and the questions asked by apprentice to master into the following few paragraphs.

The sphere of reality that house Arcady, the Ganeden, and the close town of Rivage existed outside the normal components of time and space. Laws of physics and magic were easily bent at the hands of masters, such as the Mages like Gethsemane and soon-to-be Harry and Nikoli Mandylion (the only other Master Mage that was of note in Arcady, who lived in the town of Montagne as a thane). The world (planet was not an accurate term; there were no other celestial bodies in the sky, except for stars that only served a poetic and artistic purpose) had no name, though many had been selected and used overtime. Gethsemane used the name Fatali, since it sounded as though it would belong to an overdramatic girl – similar to the world itself, but the more common name was Fiddler's Green.

The Green served as a hub for other realities and universes. Cast offs – from Earth, for example – would eventually find their way into the towns and fiefs here, after enough time and invisibility had passed. Alice Drysi, the kind sub-gardener, was such an example; ignored so long in Cardiff, she'd found her way into Rivage and Gethsemane's service. People were not the only applicants to this slip; magic and other mystic arts eventually comingled here, and far more commonly than people or objects. (Another note of interest included this – most powerful people invested in magic would eventually discover a passageway to it, moving in much the same way Wynn did. Gethsemane assured Harry that Dumbledore had probably had ways of sliding into the fiefs, which did not sit very well with Harry's stomach).

When Adrian Gethsemane had been apprenticed himself, Arcady had been bordered by many other fiefs and ducharies, perhaps even another kingdom or three. The mix, and eventual amalgamation, of different magicks and forces caused the collapse and erosion of the others. To venture beyond safe borders would be venturing into a place where the sentient magic would delight horridly, twisting the person into something that became a thing of pure magic as well, and not of a good kind.

Arcady and two other fiefs remained unaltered and normal, though Gethsemane had scowled and his eyes had lit up with a distasteful fire at the mention of the others. He was not at all on favorable terms with the Lieges of Liber and Elysion. Somehow, Harry imagined it must have been nicer to live there, if he was to be stuck in the Green. The king of the country housing all three fiefs, King Raymond XI, did not seem to have much power or respect in Gethsemane's eyes, and dwelt in the land where the three fiefs converged. The Lieges kept him as king to humor the old man's dynasty and the few powerful people who still enjoyed monarchism.

One thing, Gethsemane said clearly and firmly, that you must remember is this; the human form is _very _easily altered in Fatali. Whilst in England, it may take years of study in Transfiguration or Potions to perfect the art of the Animagi, those same rules did not apply in Arcady, or Liber, or Elysion and _especially _not in the fallen fiefs and kingdoms. One had to guard it with particular care. You could give it up for many reasons, and many of them were great and powerful and logical reasons indeed, but if you wanted to keep it, you had better be prepared to develop paranoia.

"The wrong food, for instance," Gethsemane had made special note of, "Could strip you of humanity. There's a particular fruit that prompts wings to grow. More tea?"

Harry eyes the redhead with a ferocious intensity. "You're not human, I take it then," he asked, feeling that he was stating the obvious.

"Of course not," was the obvious response. After that was, again, a traditionally expected inquiry; "So then, what are you?"

The answer was not obvious or expected. Gethsemane leaned back a little in his chair, puffing out his chest so that the sunlight caught the shine of the golden buttons on his crimson waistcoat, and responded proudly, "That, Harry, depends upon the situation at hand. For the moment, however, you may consider me a man; that will change the minute I want it to. More tea? How about another sandwich, Oswald bought a fresh catch of kraken and made good use of them."

Harry set down the sandwich he had been about to take, looking a bit green around the gills. Immediately, this writer pens an apology for such a ghastly and horrible pun.

By the end of the conversation, Harry was left with a headache, a strong taste of fruit and salmon in his throat, and the feeling that he'd somehow stumbled into a story far stranger than the one he'd been told when he was eleven. It was one thing to believe that you were a wizard and the savior of an invisible society in normal Britain when you were eleven, and an entirely different thing to find you were somehow in the hub of realities where things slid like into a drainpipe when you were seventeen. He looked out the windows. It was morning now, bits of dew and sea salt clutched to the glass. He felt exhausted.

Gethsemane took more tea. The damn pot never seemed empty, and Harry could have sworn on the Bible that it was the same pot he'd exploded accidentally yesterday. Brushing back bits of his slick and long red hair, he gave a sigh, "And I probably should explain a few things about etiquette and appearances, since you seemed to have missed _that _lesson." Harry looked at his cup of tea, and was very tempted to throw it at Gethsemane.

"Such as what? I'm not going to have to dress like I have more money than I know what to with, am I?"

"No, but that would be nice in gatherings," Gethsemane confessed at a poor attempt at what might have been wit, "You cannot cut your hair. By all accounts, I _should _be doing something to undo the years of you chopping it off carelessly, but – honestly – you'd probably be content with throwing that teacup at me and ruining another piece of expensive china if I did so." His fiery eyes glittered, _waiting _for Harry to do that and give him an excuse to change the boy's appearance to fit his own desires. All Harry did was smile, and drink more of the fruit-flavored tea. It was rather good, but needed more sugar. "You are above everybody except the King in the eyes of the public as my heir and an apprenticed mage-to-be. While you can, quick frankly, ignore everybody else, it leaves an unpleasant taste with them; and I'm certain that you'll need powerful allies in your fight with Voldemort."

This snapped Harry's attention immediately. He looked at Gethsemane, at the cocky smile that woman may have found damningly attractive, and allowed his gaze to burn into that face. "You bastard –"

"No cursing, either," said Gethsemane, holding up one long finger adorned with an over-detailed golden band, "That will certainly have you thrown out of polite society."

"You're just _taunting _me! I have a duty I need to do! And you just _threw that_ – if you're not going to send me back home and just let everything rot because you're so bloody –" Harry had stood up and was glaring furiously down at Gethsemane, his green eyes blazing with a brilliance to rival _Avada Kedavra. _"Let me go home just so I can defeat Voldemort; I'll lick your boots until Judgment Day if you let me just save my friends!"

"No." How could the answer be so simple? Harry slammed a fist down on the table.

"Why the hell not!" he snarled.

Gethsemane did not take a moment to consider the answer. "Harry," he said patronizingly in a way that nobody else could have done, "I've lived a long time in this place. I've been to other worlds. You believe you are the only young man who has had to deal with the fate of the world on his shoulders? Don't make me laugh." The red eyes were burning. "I met a boy named Alex once. His sister was held prisoner, forced into a fate you'd _vomit _at. He had to fight her with the intention of killing her. Could you stand, face brave and arm steady, if you had to fight Hermione or Ginny or Luna in a fight, when they'd kill you without a blink of their eyes?"

"How do you know about them?" The question was not angry, more furiously frightened. It went unanswered.

"I saw a man in a clinic once, poisoned by the planet, speaking nonsense, his memories stolen from a friend and planted there by another friend and his own cowardice, killing him from the inside out – and nobody gave him a break. Nobody gives heroes a break." Gethsemane looked at Harry's paling face. The description, on paper as one reads it, does not seem imposing or altogether threatening. When spoken in the way that Adrian Gethsemane managed to convey, it managed to make even Harry Potter's skin go chalky-white. "You want to be a hero to the wizards, even if it's only by prophecy? Then shut up, boy, and accept the fact that this is another dozen chapters in the horror novel of your life."

Harry inhaled several breaths, glaring at Gethsemane. He wanted to say _something _that would make him something other than an ignorant and angry kid in this bastard's eyes, just something that would get him thrown out of here and back into more-sense-making-but-still-chaotic Britain. However, all he did was stand there for several minutes while the redhead sipped tea and spooned sugar into it, clinking the cup with the spoon and breaking the silence irritatingly. Eventually, Harry inhaled a deep breath and sat down. He felt pathetic, just accepting things like this, but the alternatives his mind came up with all ended in the same fate as the monstrous gardeners.

"That's a good boy, Harry," said Gethsemane, "Now, as I was saying . . . ah, etiquette and society. You'll no doubt have met Olethea yet?"

"Yeah." He didn't really enjoy the dust-smelling, social-boundary reciting woman he'd met at lunch yesterday, but supposed she would be better than most.

"_Excellent _Magistrate," Gethsemane confessed, "If only she were like Wynn; I'd rely on her for everything. Good teacher to; ah, I should mention this to you so I don't hear complaints of confusion later. I am very busy very often and rather uninterested in teaching you absolutely everything. Some others will do the task in my absence. Olethea, for instance, Wynn on some areas – _not _traveling, get the look out of your eyes – and, oh bugger, what's that dragon's name . . .?"

"Dragon?" A sudden, painful flashback to the Horntail in his fourth year jumped to mind, and Harry found himself glaring with interest and not distrust and disgust. "A _dragon _is going to –?"

"Not the kind _you're _thinking of," said the redhead harshly, "Elfin, that's the name! Elfin Dreg. Yes, he's a Mamkute; laymen and idiots call them dragons because they turn into them." He caught Harry's curious expression and grinned none-too-kindly. "Only thing you'll learn, Harry, is that there are many different things that can apply to one name. Wizard is one example, dragon another. You're a wizard because, in England, male practitioners of magic are called wizards. Zeldalia, the old hag who lives in Regallzine, is called a wizard because it's an honorific for alchemists of her caliber. Damn woman owes me money," he added as an afterthought. Harry thought about the gift he'd gotten from Zeldalia, thought about mentioning it to Gethsemane, and watched contently as the thought floated out of his head with ease.

Would he be pushing his luck if he asked this? Harry thought of something, drank some of the tea, and asked, forcing pleasantness, "So, do I have any hope of going home?"

"Define hope," he said, "You'll not be returning to whatever life you had previously, of course. But I daresay you'll have business to do in England on my behalf someday. Who knows? Perhaps you'll do business with that lovely little Weasley girl again?" Harry's knuckles were white and his fingers were very tightly gripped around the cup. He had his tongue between his teeth, not daring so say something stupid. He couldn't help himself after Gethsemane finished. "That reminds me – your fiancée, the Lady of Mag-upon-Mell . . . she asked if she might meet with you soon enough to discuss the wedding."

Harry choked very audibly and horribly on the drink in his mouth. His face was a most impressive shade of scarlet, both from the coughing on the lump of sugar in his throat and the utter embarrassment. In a not-so-audible voice, he gasped out, "_Wedding_? _Marriage_? What – I'm not marrying anybody! I'm seventeen!"

"This means you're overdue for engagement," Gethsemane said calmly, "I bring it up now because, I daresay, you may want to invite your friends to it. I might be bold in saying this, but I think Ginny might enjoy seeing a proper and _expensive _wedding." He drank his tea. Harry didn't exactly remember deciding to move, but was certain that the decision had been reached unanimously within all parts of his mind after the word _proper. _

He threw the cup at Gethsemane and lunged, forgetting about magic and civility and all that crap, and just wanted to see the redhead _bleed. _He raised a fist to smash it into Gethsemane's stupid face, another hand at the man's throat. But even though he had all intentions of slamming the hand into Gethsemane's jaw, it hung, frozen and shaking in the air. The redhead grabbed Harry's wrist and pried it from his throat. His face had a strange grin on it.

"Boy," he said, standing up and forcing Harry's eyes (the only thing not affected by the petrification spell, it appeared) to follow him across the room. Gethsemane took something down from the shelf – a long, very thin, very heavy box that could only contain one thing. And, as Harry found, it did indeed carry that one thing. Gethsemane drew out a long sword, the type that would be called a rapier under normal circumstances, and fingered the blade lovingly. "You are my apprentice. By law, I am forced to teach you all that I know, and tend to you as a parent does to a child. I intend to do that to the best of my ability. Why, I even went through the trouble of finding that damn fruit for your tea."

Harry had a feeling he knew what kind of fruit, and had another feeling that he should have given Professor Moody's paranoia a fighting chance to develop in his mind. All he could do in terms of physical states, though, was stand frozen, one hand clenched in a fist and another bent in a clutching form, his mouth clamped shut. His eyes, though, watched as Gethsemane advanced on him with a rapier. The long, thin blade glowed with a deep indigo and violent vermilion aura that _smelled _nefarious.

"Unfortunately," said the Liege of Arcady in the most composed and kindest of tones, "I doubt I will be able to get much done with you ready to strike my throat at the littlest provocation. It's of little wonder that you have so many enemies, Harry. Now, in order to actually get some work done in my presence –" He pressed his palm against the butt of the rapier's hilt and spoke a long mantra in the same language Wynn used. It broke the petrification that kept Harry still but, so powerful was the force in the words that Harry's knees buckled and he fell to the ground, clutching onto the edge of the table with hands the color of wet ash. "I'm going to need to correct a few things, and remind you of the dearest truth in Fatali."

He pressed the edge of the rapier to Harry's throat, tilting up his head. The tendrils of indigo and vermilion magic curled around the wizard's face, scratching deep into the skin and drawing out blood that looked so viciously stark against the pallid coloring of his cheeks. Slowly, Gethsemane dragged the sword down until it pointed above his heart. The smile stretched a bit wider across the redhead's face.

"It is so _very_ easy to lose one's humanity when you anger powerful people, and once gone, it cannot be reclaimed unless requirements are met in full. And you, dear boy, have a lot of requirements to fulfill."

Gethsemane pressed his weight against the rapier and –

* * *

Harry went very quiet. The rest of the kitchen did to. His eyes were glassy and vacant and very, very frightened. Nobody was quite sure what to do or to say. Lupin stood over Harry, a hand on his shoulder, empathy in his eyes, as well as an undying sorrow. He was, perhaps, the only person in the room who could have remotely offered true help.

Hermione broke the silence uneasily. Her words tripped with trepidation. "Harry, if you . . . aren't human, than what . . .?" Curiosity always did get the better of her.

One of Harry's shaking, ash-pale hands grabbed for the sugar bowl and began to pour spoonful after spoonful of it into his already pale and oversweet tea. He mumbled very absently and lowly, and all of it was directed to his reflection in the Earl Gray. "Depends on the situation at hand," he confessed in a barely audible voice, "Is, is this place still safe enough where I could get a place to sleep?"

"Of course." He smiled and dropped the spoon back into the sugar bowl.

Only two people seemed to have noticed the peculiarity that had come up as a result of the spoon. These, of course, included Hermione and Lupin – one from experience with the peculiarity and one from extensive research. A long, thin, very painful burn had been placed on Harry's hand in the last few seconds, the glistening blister a strangely bluish-red. And Hermione, her eyes traveling in unison with Lupin's tired hazel gaze, landed on the spoon in the sugar bowl.

It was silver.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers.

Zeldalia and Regallzine, as well as her gift, are from Atelier Iris, which I do not own. NIS American and Gust do.

Mamkutes are from Fire Emblem, owned by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, not me.

Alex and his sister are from Lunar: Silver Star Story, owned by Game Arts and Sega, not I.

And, finally, the story of the man in the clinic is a bastardization of Cloud Strife, who is owned by Square Enix, not me.

I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

Wow, damn disclaimer. Since I've been getting a couple reviews saying I'm confusing people (sorry I am, but thanks for the reviews!) maybe this chapter will help (or if you could say which part is confusing, I'll be happy to explain it.)

While still a Harry Potter fic, there's going to be a lot of references to video games, other books, animes, movies, etc. since Fatali/Fiddler's Green is the hub of all worlds. If anybody has suggestions for what they'd like to see mentioned in here, I'll do my best to incorporate that into the story. However, I'll never put enough in to merit a full crossover, I promise; I know how annoying it is to read a good story but not understand the other universe brought into it.

[**Statistics **(approximately)

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[_Lines_ 459

[_Words_ 5,272

[_Characters_ 29,561

[_Font_ Times New Roman

[_Font Size_ 12


	5. Lebensdauer

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Fünf

Lebensdauer

* * *

[**Tourniquet**

Take your hatred out on me  
Make me your victim tonight  
You never ever believed in me  
I am your tourniquet

[**Rasputina**

* * *

Harry slept for five days, locked in a room in the upper floors of Grimmauld Place, soundlessly either asleep or lying there in feigned rest. Nobody disturbed him, mostly because nobody could enter the room to do so, although several of the residents in the unpleasant London home had tried desperately. The return of the wizarding world's hero in such a state had disturbed everybody who was deemed privy to the information; solely the residents of the Order of the Phoenix. Painfully, Bill and Fleur had pushed their wedding back due to, as Fleur had told her confused and upset family in France, '_A family emergency wit' zhe Weasleys._' 

But the greatest unhappiness at the situation came from the three youngest dwelling in the Order's headquarters, although it was soon to be vacated the first chance received (owing to the loophole in the Fidelius Charm after the original Secret Keeper perished). The morning of August the fourth, it was Hermione's worn and tired knuckles that banged on the door and her pleading but calming voice that asked, "Harry? Harry, are you alright, can we come in?"

"That can't be him," said Ron behind her, side by side with his younger sister, "That just _can't_."

"And why not?" snapped Hermione, spinning around and tucking slips of her brown hair behind her ears, "He's got his _scar_, he's got his _eyes_. For God's sake Ron, you know there's aging potions and you _know _that that's Harry!"

Ron shook his head fervently. It was doubtful that he disbelieved Hermione's words, it was far more likely and probable that he just failed to believe the whole situation had actually transpired. Dumbly, he voiced the tiring statement, "But he's, he's a werewolf – you said he was one, don't give me that look Hermione! – and just so old . . . how do we know this isn't just a giant load of crock the Death Eater's cooked up, and Harry's really with those muggle relatives of his?"

"He wouldn't have gotten into this place if Dumbedore didn't trust him enough," Ginny said, "And don't stand there thinking of every excuse you can." It was one of the few times she had broken her code of silence in four days. Mostly, she had mused, thinking whilst stroking Crookshanks or Arnold, staring blankly at the wall of hers and Hermione's room. It wasn't like her to be so quiet, not when she'd shown the dreadful signs of taking after Fred and George throughout her time at Hogwarts.

"Yeah, well, Dumbledore trusted Snape –" The words had no sooner left Ron's mouth before he regretted them. He snapped his jaw together quickly, shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked away. Nobody said anything. Hermione was examining her knuckles on the door, her eyes glassy as tears of rage and grief filled up into them. All these years, she spent all these years at Hogwarts _defending _Snape against Ron and Harry when they came up with cock-and-bull stories about him still being a Death Eater or just evil.

She felt sick. She leaned her head against the door, sighing very heavily. Hermione, however, was pulled from her somber and uncharacteristic self-pity at the sound of pacing footsteps in the room and a quiet, furious conversation.

"Five years; I spend five years, worrying, missing, mourning them – and nothing's changed here. Nothing at all . . ."

"You should be thankful for that. Nobody is dead. Your concern can rest."

"It . . . it isn't the same. It just; well, I don't expect you to know."

Hermione pulled from her back pocket her wand. She hadn't wanted to break into Harry's room and invade his privacy, after looking like that and acting just so strange (and knowing he had always been a bit of a stickler for privacy when he truly wanted it). But there was somebody else in the room with him, a woman with a ghastly voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard or a file over a gravestone – a truly, dark, saddened voice, and she'd be damned to be left out of something of that sort.

"_Alohamora,_" she said and tapped the doorknob. It clicked open, and she moved inside. "Harry, who's –" The scream never had a chance to leave Hermione's throat. It froze with her breath, her body rigid, her pupils as small as the head of a pin.

There was a long sword poised at her throat, quivering in the air, held by nothing by the currents. Its blade was sharp and ready to plunge into her flesh the minute she took a step forward, clicking strangely as it rotated in the air, pressing towards her. If she was not so blatantly terrified of the fact there was a goddamn _sword _ready to slice her head from her neck, she would have seen that the blade was not entirely a blade. There were marbles embedded into the metal close to the hilt – two red, a green, and a violet, all glittering ethereally, given there was little light in the room.

"Hermione!" The sword plummeted to the ground, embedding into the carpet, shivering there. The four marble-shaped stones looked disappointed. They seemed like _eyes _in the semi-darkness of the room that had once been the master bedroom of the Blacks, and after that, Sirius's prison in his ancestral and disgusting home. "Don't . . . don't break in again – it's alright, just don't do it again." Harry picked up the sword from its place in the floor, and looking fondly at his friends in the doorway. Hermione clutched at her heart.

"Who's in here? We heard a voice," Ron interjected, standing rather safely a good few feet away, not sounding entirely comfortable although talking with his closest friend on the earth. Hermione inhaled to calm herself and her beating heart, and instead looking closely at Harry with a sweeping eye Molly Weasley would have been very proud of. He looked worse. The bruises on his face had turned yellowish, the cut across his brow purple and enflamed, and the burn pus-filled and probably in need of medical attention. He walked hunched over, his long hair ratty and possibly untamable. But he smiled, and that was always a good thing.

"Better not knowing; too hard to explain," Harry still mumbled all his words to his collar and to his shoes. He sat down on the bed, drawing his legs up to him and precariously perched upon the edge like an overgrown bird, looking at them as they entered. "How've you been? Everything's still . . . the way it is?" He didn't need to give specifics. Neither did they. He looked at the ceiling. "I feel guilty. At least people in Rivage were happy. Always happy." He gave a bit of black laughter that disturbed the three of them, fumbled in his pockets, and pulled out a folded and yellow scrap of paper. He unfolded it, and revealed that it was a magical photograph. He handed it to Hermione.

She was reminded of the photograph of the old Order, the one with Harry's parents and Sirius. Six people were in it, two girls, four boys. Harry was there in it, looking maybe nineteen, looking cheerier than he ever had looked in a photograph. A girl held onto his arm, though he wasn't pleased. Black hair, white skin, dark clothing, all of it – she was a moving thing of contrasts caught on camera. Another girl was in the corner, rocking back and forth nervously on her heels, wearing a gardener's leather apron. The fourth, another boy, was dark haired and grinning wickedly, leaning his elbow on the head of the shortest, palest lad Hermione had ever seen. The sixth was hidden behind them all, so that Hermione and Ron could only catch a glimpse of long, oddly greenish hair.

"Me," Harry said unnecessarily, pointing at him while his picture-self glared uneasily at the finger, "The shorter girl is Alice – have you ever heard of the Drysi family, she kept asking if I knew them."

Hermione had heard of the Drysis. Combing through The Quibbler for any scrap of information she could (since The Daily Prophet had become nothing more than a rag of lies and over-fabrication that the country was hunky-dory), an article yesterday had the report of some Death Eaters identified in Bath. Only three had been named by the source Luna's father kept quiet for protection reasons (probably at the behest of the source himself; Mr. Lovegood had always been prone to naming his freelance journalists without fear) and they had included Rushton Pan, Markus Knightly, and Clint Drysi. She had heard the bit about the gardener girl at Samedi, and hoped she wasn't related to the Death Eater.

Instead, she said, "Who're the others?" Somehow, she suspected Harry knew about the Drysi family. Perhaps it was the way the smiling little girl in the photograph suddenly stopped smiling and looked away, kicking the dirt sadly, or perhaps it was the way he let the subject die without any fighting chance.

"Izzy," he said, the dark girl who was looking curiously at the sky and moving her mouth soundlessly, "The Lady of Mag-upon-Mell. I'll explain . . ."

* * *

Days had passed in a very uneasy calmness. Liege Gethsemane left his cozy home on the shores of the Ganeden for the Capitol and a well-to-do party with the King and his courts, leaving the château and the care of his unwell apprentice to his man of business, Wynn. The ill-health of his apprentice, Harry Potter, was not due to any actual illness or disease, but rather the unkind hand of Gethsemane himself. For nearly a fortnight, Harry slept poorly in his cozy new bedroom, doused in frigid sweat, crying out hoarsely in nightmares. 

Early in August, when the night was very rainy and the wind smelled of static Harry awoke with a start. He couldn't move very well due to the amount of time he'd slept and the suddenness with which he was brought back to the world of the awake, and his breathing was harsh. A migraine throbbed in his temples and in his scar, though it was only a dull ache that had become associated with bad nights of sleep. He inhaled and exhaled evenly, coughing slightly, listening without great concern when somebody spoke on his side.

"Oh, dear, you're awake already. That's good. Can you sit up?" Somebody touched his arm and helped him to sit up against the headboard and the pillows. The sheets and pillow were soaked with very heavy sweat. Harry wiped his face on his sleeve and strained his eyes. The vision was blurred and blocky, but he saw there was a man or two beside him. One wore white, maybe a healer, and the other had gray hair and red clothing. "Honestly, this is more than a bit of concern. _Poisoning _an innocent boy like this; the shame of it all . . ."

"Poison?" croaked Harry. His throat hurt desperately and threatened to send him into a coughing spasm, "What's wrong with me?"

"Allergic reaction to the magical venom Adrian used. Rather bad one, too. What did you do to get him so angry?" Harry's memory was foggy and he shook his head slowly, avoiding the pain it caused inside his skull.

"Can I have my glasses?" They were handed to him, and for a moment it surprised him that he was holding pince-nez instead of his normal coke bottle frames. A glass of water was also shoved onto him. He put the frames on, grateful for the clarity, but far more grateful for the water that eased his throat and gave his turbulent stomach something to churn.

Wynn Sambuca stood furthest away, smiling paternally, holding something behind his back. His scarlet robes were still on his shoulders, but his suit had changed from red to orange and yellow. He looked a bit relieved to see Harry moving and awake again, and said so in a kind voice. The other man, closer up, was the stereotypical image of an elderly doctor without the elderly age. His hair was slicked back and deep, dark cerulean (making Harry stare in surprise for several minutes). His navy suit belonged in the Victorian age, complete with watch chain and white frock coat. He grinned at Harry. He was maybe thirty, at most.

"You recover fast," the doctor said, "Expected no less from _the _Harry Potter. Though, I'm very sad to say, I'm going to have to break the bad news to you."

"Bad news?" He was accustomed to bad news. Harry drank the water peacefully, rubbing his side where pain radiated. It hurt very badly when he touched, perhaps like how an appendix, when recently removed, would burn at the touch of the scar. His nose itched; something smelled rather odd in the room, though he couldn't put his finger on it precisely. "What happened? I don't remember too much."

"How surprising," the doctor said with no small portion of sardonic sarcasm, "Adrian has that effect on people. Good Lady, I've met enough people with retrograde amnesia because of that man . . . Now then, Harry, would you like a bite to eat?"

"No," was the very quick answer, "What's that smell?" The doctor's smile dropped a little bit. Wynn looked around suspiciously and went to shut the window. It didn't rid the room of the aroma, and somehow made it a bit worse. However, Harry gave a deep inhale (that _tasted_ odd . . . and it scared him considerably that he could taste something on the air) and looked at the doctor, and his very bright turquoise eyes. "What _happened_?"

"Ah, yes," the doctor became very interested in his watch, examining it with full intensity, "Adrian cursed you. Very nasty one to; I, erm, believe that the term . . . lycanthropyisappliedtoit." He spoke very quickly and hastily, and mostly into the cuff of his coat. Harry blinked, and tried to slow down the words in his head. He managed such, despite the horrid pounding in his mind. And, to the readers who have ever been faced with a particularly nasty and unorthodox announcement when they are not of fully comprehending mind, Harry copied their motions.

"What? What'd you mean?" He clutched at his head, the base of his palm massaging his temple and only succeeding in whirling his world into a mess of color and strange, heavy smells. "Lycanthropy, did you say?"

"Yes," said the doctor nervously, "It's quite curable, whenever Adrian decides to give you that option, and I don't think it will have any adverse effects on people here; too much magic in the air, you see." Harry held up a hand and, mercifully, the doctor fell silent with a quick shutting of his prominent jaw.

"I'm a werewolf?" he asked, very weakly, scared, "But how? When was I bitten – I don't remember."

"Ah, the English; so very ignorant," Wynn mumbled vaguely, and moving towards him and placing a hand on his shoulder protectively, "Lawrence, would you give us a moment?"

"Gladly," the doctor said not unkindly. It was his manner that excused his harsh words and quick actions; although a splendid doctor, courtesy of his ancestors and upbringing, his bedside manner was noticeably lacking and many would pardon him for it. He gave a smile to Harry, wished him luck and told him he'd be back shortly, but he had a gardener who had lost an arm in the rosary to tend to. Lawrence shut the door with a click that seemed exceptionally loud in Harry's head.

"What happened?" Harry demanded of Wynn, throwing the covers off and shivering violently in the warmth of the room that felt like ice to his flesh. Wynn looked pensive and said, tactlessly, "You said something you shouldn't have to Adrian Gethsemane. His way of punishment was to curse you with lycanthropy. If you ever manage to appease him enough, I'm sure he'll correct it."

The somber look sank deep into Harry's features, and it would remain there – partly – for the rest of his life. The same affliction doused Remus Lupin's countenance, as it had since he had been at Hogwarts. Harry looked intently at his fingernails. It was a bit sad – although he viewed a werewolf as an almost surrogate uncle, in place of any other proper key to the era of his parents, the only thing that flittered through his head was all the images of werewolves muggle horror movies. He remembered the flesh-eating monsters, with the glowing eyes and ragged breath, and the look as they cornered a blonde girl in some public but vacated place. He felt Wynn sit down next to him and place a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Valuable lesson against angering people in power," Wynn said unhelpfully, "And there are plenty of werewolves abound. It's a popular condition. I'm sure every backwater world has some form of one."

"That doesn't help," Harry snapped, but something told him that he should have kept his mouth shut. In an entirely non-schizophrenic way, Harry had gotten used to various portions of his mind interjecting their opinions into his actions. Of recently, the violent and ill-tempered part had had the most say in his actions, and it had not yet given anything resembling an apology for putting him in the mess that resulted in the loss of his humanity – a treasure most guarded, Gethsemane had said sardonically.

Now, however, it was a harsher bit of his mind that hissed for him to show respect. It sounded like a bit of a bark. It was threatening, and more forceful and sentient than any other part previously. Harry shut his mouth, ran his hands through his hair, and wondered if he was going slowly mad. He noticed, however, something distinctly unfamiliar and easily identifiable. He pulled his fingers out of his hair, and noticed that his hair went with them. And there was a damn lot of it; enough to reach the middle of his back.

_BASTARD_, thought every part of his mind at once. Gethsemane, after Harry had been unconscious, had fulfilled his promise of undoing seventeen years of haircuts.

Wynn was giving a smile. "You look better with long hair kid."

Harry said nothing. He held his head again, leaning over to rest his elbow on his knee. He didn't know what to think – everything had gone to hell so very quickly. His wand was broken. He was in some form of a reality sinkhole, apprenticed to a man as good as a Malfoy who'd made him a werewolf, for what? Maybe yelling something? Every little bit of his life, so precariously carved out after ten unhappy years as a punching bag to Dudley and six years as a constantly endangered savior to people whose opinion of him was as violate as the wind, was being erased, and erased rapidly, without a care to his opinion. Well, that was nothing new. People seemed well adapted to running his life for him.

"People keep stopping by to pay their respects to the new apprentice of _'is Grace, Liege Ge'semane_," Wynn said, putting on a very poor attempt at a French accent that forced a bit of a grin to Harry's face, "Lots of gifts. And Mariette has decided to spearhead a party for your birthday; I've never seen so much life in that girl, it does her good. You probably should get to those damn gifts sometime soon and give this room a bit of a . . . human look to it." He looked at the starkly empty bedroom. The only bit of decoration was the vase of blue roses Alice had put in there. They'd been changed recently, Harry saw, and there were a lot more in there than previously.

"You're different than you were at Privet Drive," Harry confessed, glaring strangely at the man of business. He'd finally deduced that the strange smell in the room was coming off of Wynn, and with a sharp inhale he could _taste _the components of that aroma; gunpowder and, grinning as he discovered it, sambuca liqueur. "Like a different person."

"Really?" Wynn looked curious. "You're the ninth person to tell me that. Well, tenth – Alice said so when I took her to visit Cardiff. My dad was like it to." He rubbed his chin absently, and looked to make sure the door was shut. "I suppose it comes with the territory."

"Which one? Does working for Gethsemane," it took a lot for Harry to say the name with anything resembling civility, "Do it, or –?"

"The traveling, if anything," he mused, "People aren't meant to slide from one reality to another. Quite frankly, I don't think they have any place messing with magic in the first place; I've seen a lot of results of some bad deals. Weyard is a whole mess, they both can't live with it and die without it." He gave a bit of a grave sigh and reached for something in the long sleeve of his crimson robe, and tossed it to Harry. "Bit of an apology for it all. I'm sure it'll do some good."

It was a Chocolate Frog. The nostalgia was a bit intoxicating. Harry gave a deeply saddened grin, irritatingly pushing hair out of his eyes (that was going to take more than a bit of getting used to), and tore it open. The card inside, perhaps mockingly ironic, was Dumbledore's. Harry fell very quiet, staring at the softly snoring portrait of the old man on the card, and the death date that had been added beneath the picture.

"You know him?" Wynn asked carelessly.

"Yeah," Harry muttered, "Well. He took care of me, in some way, I suppose. Made sure I lived. I was there when he died . . ." He bit down on the chocolate, hard. It didn't make him feel the slightest bit better.

"Death is hard," Wynn said, stating the obvious very bluntly and earning a bit of a glare, "This sounds cold, but I hope you always mourn it for a while. When you stop mourning people, you end up used to death, and people become just names and not individuals. It makes it too easy for someone to lose humanity." Harry looked at Wynn. He'd heard a similar speech given to him by Gethsemane, but what did it matter. He wasn't human anymore. He was cursed, like poor Professor Lupin, only this time there weren't any Marauders there to help him. All there was – at the most – was Mariette and Alice and Wynn, but he doubted he'd go to them for help. He finished the last of the frog. "Good to see you're eating."

"How long have I been out for?"

"Fortnight. Nasty reaction you had to the werewolf venom; that's the stuff in their saliva that passes the curse. I guess you had an allergy to it. Quite frankly, you should be dead." The words brought no help to him at all.

Harry had to lean heavily against the bedside table as he got up. His legs were shaking and very weak after two weeks of no use, and his heart seemed to race frantically with the simplest of movements. The world swam frantically, and Harry put up no fight when Wynn pushed him gently back down onto the bed. "Lawrence – the doctor, you know – said no movement until he's sure that the effects are gone completely. I'll ask Mariette to bring you food. I take it some ham and eggs sound good?" Harry gave an eager nod before he realized that it sounded a bit _too _good to the newer portion of his mind, the one that – undoubtedly – belonged to the werewolf.

Sitting still, waiting for his breathing to even out and his heart rate to do similar, Harry asked one question that he probably would not have done so if he wasn't feeling so sick and miserable (and that, this writer remarks with a grimace, is not merely just a phrase. Magical allergies can and most often are fatal, and if not that, potentially crippling. The only reason Harry lived is because of the aggressive nature of a werewolf's magical immune system). "Sir, would it be possible for you to get my things? I mean, my trunk and, and Hedwig, from the Dursleys?"

"Not a problem, lad." Wynn paused for a moment and corrected himself. "Who's Hedwig?"

"My owl."

"Ah. Have to warn you; birds have the nasty habit of returning to me unhappy. I _smell _too much like them." He gave a nostalgic sort of look at the raining sky outside the window, and grimaced. Harry gave a tentative inhale of the air. He couldn't smell anything, but he was also still in half-denial. Parts of his mind still screeched that this was all a nightmare – a garish, sick nightmare brought about by stress and grief. Another part had accepted nearly all of this but refused to believe that he'd been bitten.

_Where was the proof?_ it asked snidely, _Where was his wound?_ He had touched no silver; he had no proof, no proof but the word of two strangers and a funny taste in the air.

But logically, Harry knew. How, he was not sure. Harry could only assume that every man knows instantly when he no longer is counted as a person.

Wynn gave a smile. He was still deep in some memory of his own. "Maybe someday, you'll see where I come from. I just hope there's not another war." He stood up, tugging at his scarlet robe, and smiling still at Harry. "You rest. Whenever Lawrence is finished with Caleb, he'll be in to give the full diagnostic. I'll be back with some food and gifts. That should lighten your mood." Harry doubted it. He watched Wynn leave, and fell back onto the bed. His head swam and his hair (far, far too long) pulled as he moved.

What was he going to do? What could he do? How could he possibly even return to Hogwarts or to the Order, now a werewolf, his left hand still shaking viciously with a nearly psychotic twitch? Was he going to remain here, forced to grit his teeth and smile at Gethsemane, less more of himself be transformed into something else? By the end of it all, could he still call himself Harry Potter, without clinging to what had once been?

Feeling hopeless, sick at the weight of the chocolate and water in his stomach, and grieving for a concept he never thought he would lose, Harry found his eyes were watering. Not heavily, certainly not sobbing, but realizing that he was mourning the life he'd managed to grab onto. It had not been a particularly excellent life, certainly not an easy life, but it had been _his _and he'd grown accustomed to it over the years. He fell asleep uneasily, thinking only that unhappy thought, but glad he didn't feel sick as he slept.

\/\

"Ever the callous man, aren't you Adrian?"

The words were spoken loftily and lazily, by a woman no less, as women had perfected the art of sounding nonchalantly challenging throughout years. Passive-aggressiveness had taken its toll on the gender in its entirety, and not in a bad manner. For one thing, the tone befitted women best, and it belonged to this woman in a way no other tone of voice could. The Honorable Lady, Gabrielle Edessa, current wife of the King (though not the mother of any of his children), gave a many-faced smile at Adrian Gethsemane. He was her partner for tea this evening, in the luxurious estate of Raymond XI.

"Callous is such a harsh word, Gabrielle," he retorted. He looked the same as he always had – unnaturally immaculate, handsome as the Devil. His suit of pinstriped scarlet silk glistened in the sunlight and his hair shone like fire. "I never supposed I would get advice on childcare from _you_. Haven't most of your children gone on to die violent, reckless deaths?"

The words would have stung anybody had they been thrown to anybody else. But Gabrielle merely smiled and stirred her honey-sweet tea. Her green eyes were intently focused on Gethsemane's red, threatening him to make a move to upset her. Gabrielle was a beautiful woman, but she was in Gethsemane's shadow. Hers were natural looks and possessed flaws – the nose, for one, was crooked, and the eyebrows very thick and an ugly red against her pale skin. The smile was kept upon her face with no force. She knew a great truth in the world; show no fear at words, for words meant nothing whatsoever. She held the cup of fine china delicately, pinky extended.

"Childcare? Why would I be as humdrum as that?" she gave a merry trill that sounded like rattling ice, "You are not raising a child; you have a fully grown young man in your apprenticeship, bound by laws as old as the Green itself, and waiting for the chance to flee." Her eyes glimmered, challenging.

"Where has he to flee to? I've given him a far better life than he could ever hope to have in ramshackle Britain. Unlike your children, I have given him no reason to hate their guardian." Arrogance permitted Gethsemane to tell such a lie; he truly believed that he had done no wrong in ripping a boy from his home.

Continuing in a voice as threatening as previously, she said, "You picked poorly, I must say. Law forbids that you lay a hand upon heroes before they've done their good." Looking at Gethsemane over the rim of her cup, she said coolly, "Look at Valoren."

Nobody needed to be reminded of Valoren once they heard the tale of the ill-fated world. For the sake of the readers, this writer will not delve too deep into the tale, but instead shall flesh out the barest facts. There had been a king who had a son, and that son should have saved a dying girl. He had not, because Master Mage Hyperion Cambridge had taken him for an apprentice against his will.

Very icily in a manner that did not suit the rest of Gethsemane's enflamed persona, he spoke to the queen in what passed for respectable civility. "I'm not doing anything that constitutes such harshness from you, Gabrielle. I did not take any hero prematurely; I took him so that I can obey the law decreed by your sweet husband, God bless his name." He toasted the air so that the watching walls could be pleasured. It was an empty gesture. Adrian Gethsemane held nothing above himself, not even laws of physics and the Law.

"Where does that statute say that you may make a monster out of him." It was not a question, and does not deserve the mark. Gabrielle's voice mirrored the ice in Gethsemane's with a fire that bordered on zealotry. "You said _werewolf _but you damn well didn't do _werewolf_, did you? Anything worthy of nature can _smell it on him_."

Gethsemane twitched his lips into a wide grin that made his eyes sparkle furiously with the glint of ethereal embers. He set down his cup and intertwined his long fingers, adorned with a fat signet ring whose symbol changed whenever eyes were laid upon it. "I have done nothing of that sort. I am free to do as I see fit with my apprentice; the Law states that. I've seen worse done to better people. You recall Nikoli's apprentice Nathaniel Beckett? A flower has more human blood in him now, and a greater likeness to a man's face."

"You aren't dealing with a person, Adrian," she said loftily, the fury dead in her words, "You're dealing with Harry Potter. You are dealing with a boy whose name and image are engraved into the Book of Law as untouchable heroes; somebody whose soul is of the caliber of the Dragoons of Endiness, the Hero of Time, the mercenary of Nibelheim and the last Centra. Do not make the same mistake that Cambridge did."

Gethsemane smiled still over the rim of his cup. It seemed unlikely that he would ever be caught without a brew of herbs and hot water with him; the man oozed civility from him just as he did magic and arrogance, and the unmistakable taint of his old existence. He laughed a little bit – a merry sound that brought no mirth to either of them. "I am not the one you should give forewarnings to about heroes. Whose fault is it that the Veil is in the hands of an inept government and messed with the Law of Alteration? It shouldn't have been there."

A hush was mandatory after the mention of _it_. Everybody with a hint of magic in their bones and death lodged in their past would be drawn to _it_, threatened to enter when events were calm, the spirit inside pleading for companionship it would twist and ensnare into something . . . unrecognizable. Even Gethsemane's face would show compassion if he laid fire-red eyes upon something returned from beyond _it. _No china clinked together in the chambers of the Queen's Pavilion for a moment, and then Gabrielle's chilly voice broke it unpleasantly. "Is there any other type of government than an inept one?"

They shared a laugh that was for appearance and appearance only. Green eyes watched red ones intently, both pairs unblinking, _waiting _for the opportunity to strike down their opponent and gloat in well-deserved and long awaited pride. Powerful arrogance and passionate zealotry made for cruel foes. Gabrielle drank more tea as she thought quickly, and the words spilled out just as fast, but with class befitting a woman of her stature, "You still owe me a great debt, Adrian. I'm calling it in."

"Oh," he said lazily, "Whatever for?"

Gabrielle Edessa smiled sweetly and tossed back slips of her voluptuous hair. She pushed something forward towards Gethsemane – a photograph of a laughing man, cut from a newspaper nearing two decades old. Sweetly, tinged with the promise of vengeance as always, she said, "Bring him to your apprentice, Adrian. Do it, and you will never have to see my face again."

Gethsemane examined the photograph for a minute. His reply was prompt. "No."

"Dear Adrian," she said, laughing joyously for the first time the entire meeting, "Do you reckon there's a choice in that matter? You have a _debt _to me, from the time in the War of Magi, and _another _when you were an apprentice yourself? Do you remember that, Adrian," she leaned forward, the whisper tantalizing as it slipped from her mouth, "Or should I say Lu –?"

"Enough," he said, and stood up. He looked angry. It wasn't a bright idea to ruffle Gethsemane's feathers; it would spell bad news for that apprentice of his, now slowly breaking after too many years of too much. She pitied the lad, she did, but there had been others who had seen _worse_. Vaguely, Gabrielle wondered what poor fate would befall the apprentice now. She hoped it was wings; she did love a man with wings. "He's beyond _it _isn't he?"

"Of course."

His fiery eyes blazed with the promise of pain, but not for Gabrielle. He took the photograph and flicked it easily. It burst into flames, curling in the palm of his hair, setting his face into dark shadows that suited it far more. Gabrielle Edessa watched merrily, enjoying her tea. She wouldn't mess with Gethsemane's choice of apprentice directly, but she certainly would do her best to make sure he would live long enough to make it into the Book of Law. What better way was there than to provide him with some help? She only prayed that the help wasn't going to return as a blathering madman, drunk on the spirit's temptations.

And, although in a dream, a dark-haired boy saw the battle of words and tempers and the promise, he did not remember it when he was awoken by a blonde woman dressed as a maid.

"Sir Harry? Dame Olethea is ready to begin lessons. You must get up."

Harry made a faint noise in his sleep, his eyes struggling against the imprisoning lids. His breath drew in the gagging smell of loneliness and lavender, and it was that that pulled his mind from the depths of slumber. The reminder that, now, he was inhuman and could _smell _loneliness tugged him into the unhappy reality before him. He looked up, the pince-nez still on and digging painfully into the bridge of his nose, and saw Mariette's expressionless visage. He pulled himself up, groggy.

"Wassamatter?" he asked weakly. He felt weak all over; a counter effect of only having chocolate to eat over the course of two weeks. "Was wrong?"

"Dame Olethea is ready to begin her lessons with you," Mariette repeated, offering a hand for Harry to take and get up, "She is awaiting in the library. Are you feeling better?"

"Sort of," he said, neglecting Mariette's gesture and getting up on his own accord, leaning heavily upon the wall and the bedside table. He glared angrily at the mess of hair in his face. "I feel like I've been hit with a Bludger over and over."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but what is a Bludger?" He looked at her for a minute, and shook his head.

"Never mind," he mumbled. His eyes looked at her a bit more carefully. Mariette felt a bit different than she had before, when he had stood by her. Maybe now, with his senses funny, everything felt off, but it seemed she was warmer, her skin more flushed. He clutched at his temple absently, and saw the bundle of clothing in her arms. Mariette held his hand and motioned for the adjacent bathroom.

"Begging your deepest pardon, good Sir, but I am sure that Dame Olethea would request that you look . . . presentable." She shut her mouth quickly, for fear of further insulting her. Harry supposed she may have had a valid point. Two weeks of illness probably did not do him very much good. However, whilst this was logical, he merely gave a furious sigh, took the clothes from her, and went into the bathroom.

His reflection in the mirror startled him badly. He both did not expect a mirror to be in the place that it was, still relatively unused to the house (not just _the _house, _his _house as well, since there seemed to be little likelihood of Harry finding another place of residence whilst Gethsemane was still alive and bent on making the wizard his apprentice), and did not recognize the man looking back at him. He grabbed against the countertop in shock and a sudden crunch of agony from his right side. _That _was not his reflection.

His face was ghastly white, sweaty and the ugly shade of milk that had been sitting out for days. His hair, unwashed and unpleasant, fell in clumps to his mid-back, hiding many of his hollow features, and his scar almost entirely. His glasses looked out of place on his face, and magnified his eyes extensively in the mirror. Green, still he was pleased to note, but wide and with contracted pupils. They were sunken slightly in his face, framed by heavy bags from ill-gotten slumber. And, when the light hit them _just right_, there was a sheen of amber-golden madness.

At seventeen, he resembled Sirius at the time of his escape from Azkaban – filthy, half-insane, a convict on the run for almost a year, having spent twelve in the company of soul-sucking fiends.

Beneath the white of his bedclothes, he saw a very ugly bruise on his chest and gently inspected the wound, suspecting that it might have the bite that warped his humanity. Indeed it was, and an ugly sight indeed. The bite was small, the jaws probably the size of a small dog if inspected by somebody who specialized in animal bites, but the bruising and wound was terrible. His entire side was taken up by an indigo-and-sable discoloration, and closer towards the curse itself, a furious, infected scarlet. The sight revealed exactly why his abdomen hurt like all his ribs had been cracked.

Should a specialist ever examine the wound, they would run screaming to a psychotherapist. A proper doctor of the Fiddler's Green, or any world that held expertise on horrible forms of magic, would produce a grim diagnostic. Beneath the mess of internal bleeding showing itself on skin, one could probably find the original incision made by Gethsemane's rapier. The bite was not made by anything on a normal plane of reality – it had come from a spectral source. And those, this writer assures you readers, are not of anything resembling a pleasant nature.

Yet there was no way that Harry, ignorant of much outside of his own world, would know this. All that he knew was that there was an agonizing wound on his stomach and a dead look to eyes that briefly glimmered wolf-yellow. He sighed woefully – aged beyond his years.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers.  
Weyard is the world of Golden Sun, owned by Nintendo and Camelot.

The Dragoons of Endiness are from Legend of Dragoon, property of Square Enix.  
If you don't know who owns the Hero of Time, it's very sad, but he's owned by Nintendo none the less.

The mercenary and the Centra are, of course, property of Square Enix.

I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

Yay another chapter! And, in case I did mess up with the transition, Harry saw the conversation between Gethsemane and Gabrielle as a dream sequence. She and her Book of Law should be remembered.

[**Reviews**

Toboeshi – Well, the names aren't Gaelic, but Alice's surname and Wynn's are both Welsh. Gethsemane, however, is Biblical.

larsbars08 – Yeah, I can understand how that's annoying, but he won't be like this for very long.

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	6. Verlobte

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Sechs

Verlobte

* * *

[**How Soon Is Now?**

I am the son and the heir

Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

I am the son and the heir

Of nothing in particular

[**t.A.T.u**

* * *

A bath and a meal have been known to do wonders for a person who had not had both for a long time, even if the meal was just a bacon sandwich. Those two items have been known to take a lethargic and fatigue-ridden traveler, nearly dead by his affliction of wanderlust, and turn him back into that roguish man of the world that made women swoon to his side. The effect had lost itself somewhat upon Harry, but the combination had certainly done a miracle for his appearance. The tangle of black hair, although it had swallowed at least one comb in his attempt to deal with the mess, hung long and wet down his back in a loose ponytail that Mariette insisted would look better braided (although Harry visibly cringed at the thought of walking around like some idiot).

He ate the sandwich like a man possessed as Mariette showed him towards the library. It was the first meal he'd had in so very long, and it tasted better than even Mrs. Weasley's bacon sandwiches. He gave a bit of a grin despite the situation, and the sharp pain coursing through his body from his side that forced him to use Mariette as a remedial walking stick. It was at least good to be out of the bed, although much of his stay in it had been lost to his sense of time, and stretch his legs.

"How is your wound?" she asked kindly. He shrugged, unsure of how to properly classify the pain with anything short of expletives.

"I can't say. It hurts like hell, but I don't know if it's supposed to not hurt, or whatever," he said miserably, "I have a friend who's a werewolf – well, not a friend," he corrected quickly, thinking of what to accurately classify Professor Lupin as. "He was one of my dad's best friends. They learned how to be Animagi just to help him through the transformations."

"They sound like good friends," she said absently, "Pardon my ignorance, Sir Harry, but what is an Animagi?"

"They can turn into animals," he explained. He thought of Sirius, not for the first time since the man's poor death, risking his capacious freedom just to trot after Harry at King's Cross as Padfoot. He smiled bleakly, "My dad could turn into a stag . . ." He didn't even realize he was trailing off, muttering secrets to a woman he had met just days ago (by his schedule, not hers, since hers was two weeks ahead). He felt Mariette tug away from him and give him a strange look.

"Are you one of the Parentless?" she asked. A strange sort of tone had entered her voice, and Harry smelled . . . fear, was it? He couldn't get used to the smell of emotions, he knew that instinctively, it was just unearthly on the most revolting level. It was also just the slightest bit ironic; even Harry Potter can be a hypocrite. He had no problem with Professor Lupin being a werewolf, but finding himself one now was disturbing beyond measures. This writer must turn to her readers with a bit of an inquiry – was it true hypocrisy or a surge of pity for those who suffered the same affliction?

"Parentless?" he asked, and grabbed for the wall as the wound in his side gave a stab of pain. He inhaled deeply, and Mariette hurried back so that he could lean down upon her. She still held the trepidation in her voice.

"My most sincere apologies, Sir Apprentice; I should not have left you be! I-I have heard Sire Sambuca speak of people from his home so dreadfully . . . the Parentless, he spoke of, are children of humans and those who turn into animals. They are most revolting, Sire Sambuca says."

Harry felt a flurry of indignation rise up into his chest. It sounded just like the same pureblood nonsense Malfoy and the Death Eaters forced down people's throats, the same worthless and outdated theories that were the reason for Dumbledore's and Sirius's and Cedric's death, and his miserable fate as a martyr. Inhaling sharply and jerking Mariette away from him, he gave her a rather cold look. "Yeah? And why are they so revolting – because their parents were different? That's no reason to call them _Parentless_."

"Sire Sambuca says they are abominations against the goddess –" She was trembling. It wasn't fear, it was desperation. Harry gave her a vicious glare that made Mariette visibly cringe. He could not tell it, but his eyes held the look of something that would kill her if she made a wrong move. Although nothing had changed about the shape, size, or color of his eyes, Mariette could very clearly picture them to be the emerald eyes of a hungry and unhappy wolf.

"They're people. Parentage doesn't mean a thing." He left Mariette alone, refusing the help she offered and instead using the wall to guide him. Impulsively, he had put himself in the position of wandering around the damn chateau, not knowing where the library was, and his ribcage burning with every uneasy step. His nails began to dig into the wall after a period of gasping, gagging steps.

_Sense should not be this hard to come by_, he thought bitterly. _What happened to the days where I understood what was going on_?

Cynically, his mind reminded him that those days did not exist. Even as a small child, he didn't understand why his aunt and uncle would hide him in a cupboard and pour lavishes upon their son, or why strange things would occur around him. He told his mind to shut up with a snarl and it backed away.

Harry only found the library after several minutes, possibly one hour and a half, of tedious searching into each room he managed to land himself into. He was gritting his teeth. The bite on his side felt like it was bleeding badly but each time he examined it, he saw nothing. Nothing, except the hue of purple-black beneath his shirt. It was an ugly stain against his pale skin and reminded him of poison, and it _hurt like hell _as he moved into the library of Château de Samedi. It was a large room; nowhere near the size of the Hogwarts library, but Harry somehow doubted that any of the books would be found in Madam Pince's prized library. He would bet that most of the books were not even on Earth, strange as that may sound.

He clutched from shelf to shelf as he moved through them, looking for the damn woman called Olethea (a stuffy, uptight thing that resembled a dusty Professor McGonagall). He was not looking forward to these lessons. In fact, he thought of them with the same vile disgust that he had associated Snape's Occlumency lessons with – something forced upon him with little to no explanation that satisfied him.

Harry sneezed violently, inhaling more dust than was good for him. _Damn lycanthropy_, he thought, wondering exactly how Professor Lupin had survived entering the Shrieking Shack every full moon when he was in school. He coughed spastically, holding on tightly to the edge of a shelf. The sound must have been horrible to anybody who might have listened. His fingers slid on the spine of a book and he felt ice slide down into his fingers and into his hands. He stood up quickly, adrenaline fighting back the pain, as he looked at his hand. Already uneasy from the Transfiguration Gethsemane had forced upon him weeks ago, ice cracked along the back of it. He brushed it off, and looked at the book he had touched.

It was simple and it was powder blue. There was nothing about the state of the spine that would suggest anything unnatural, except there was no title imprinted upon it. This, Harry recalled from his brief escapade in the Restricted Section in Hogwarts, was not a very good sign for a book. He was tempted to pull it out and look at the front, or even the pages, but he had a feeling (or rather, lack of feeling in his left hand) that it would not be the brightest of ideas.

Still, it was awfully tempting –

"You're Harry Potter! _That's _why I remember you!"

He jumped slightly and spun his head around, cracking the nasty stiffness in his neck. Alice Drysi had appeared behind him, almost as if she had Apparated, looking entirely innocent with a wide grin on her face. Her leather apron was stained with something he hoped was just dark tree sap, but the metallic scent that rose to his nose told no lies. She stank of plant life and earth, and a joyous little bit of happiness that somehow seemed too childish for a girl of sixteen (Harry did not know exactly how old Alice was, he was merely guessing on the age. She looked as old as Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood).

"Yeah, I am," he said lazily, used to the question – almost every first-year would ask it to him eventually every year. Alice's violet-blue eyes were wide like dishpans and she gave a mighty whistle.

"My dad used to talk about you – my uncle Will to. Never good things, mind you; Uncle Will thought you were a brat, you know, but he's always had a bad taste for anything half-way decent in the world. Oh, goodness, what happened to your hair! It's a _mess_!" Alice moved up close to him and examined the entanglement that he'd forced back with a rubber band. "Boys have no sense of aesthetics at all . . ."

"I'd rather have it short anyway," he said, trying to ignore that particular unpleasantness. Alice, however, gave him a very firm look and insisted that she try and do something with it, drawing out a sharp metal comb from her apron pocket that was more commonly used on dogs. The particular bit of irony did not escape from Harry. Whilst she did her best without his consent, Alice continued on talking.

"I didn't know that you were _the _Harry Potter. I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but is it true that you're an Animagus?"

He gave her a very odd look, wincing lightly as she pulled out the remains of the comb he'd gotten lodged in there. "What? No, who said that . . .?" Harry wondered if he did exactly want to know the extent of his fame, but he'd already asked the question.

"Oh, well," Alice said, embarrassed, "My sister Kerry goes to Hogwarts – fifth year, by now, I think, Slytherin – and she kept telling everyone home that you snuck around school all the time. She thought . . . kinda stupid that I bring it up now." With a final tug, she let go of his hair and mumbled, "There! So much better; doesn't look like a rat scrambled around in it."

Not really all that interested in the status of his hair but still rather interested on maintaining conversation with her (she may have been the only other person in all of Arcady from his world for all Harry knew), he asked, "What're you doing here?"

"Wynn gave us the day off because Caleb got on the wrong end of Betsy – she's the Liger that His Grace keeps in the rosary." Alice had a perky, almost irritating-but-not cheeriness about her that, somehow, told Harry she was just as happy to find someone she could remotely relate to as he was. She looked at him a bit more closely. "What did happen to your hair? Where've you been for the last two weeks; Wynn said I wasn't allowed to bring you any more flowers."

"Thanks for those," he confessed, leaning heavily on the shelf, "Gethsemane did. And . . ." He paused. Did he want to tell Alice why he'd been bedridden for the better half of a fortnight? He didn't know her and, although Harry did not particularly like to admit it, she was the only one he would consider a friend now that returning to Hogwarts and his former life was a bleak prospect. She was the child of a wizard; she knew about werewolves, and probably would not be too keen on associating with one.

She blinked her large eyes at him. "Do you want to sit down? You look like you're in pain. A lot of it. What happened?"

"Actually," he said, interrupting her, finding an excuse to avoid the conversation and her questions, "I'm supposed to meet that Olethea woman here; for lessons, or something."

"That can't be right," Alice said, offering him a hand and something to lean his weight against, which he took graciously, "Miss. Olethea left for Rivage this morning, Wynn said she wouldn't be back until tomorrow."

Harry did not like being tricked. He scowled furiously, and Alice shrank under the expression, misconstruing it for animosity towards her. "Then who –?" He froze in his words. Something was assaulting his nose and his hearing very badly; so harshly, that he clamped his hand over his nose and gagged viciously. There was someone in the library that was oozing the putrid stench of jealousy and rage, and a sick combination of herbal hand lotions. And the _sound_ . . .

"YOU! Off of my _fiancée!_"

Harry gagged harshly, his grip on Alice's shoulder gone in an instant as somebody pulled him close towards them. The smell was just . . .; he commended Professor Lupin with all of his heart and soul for just managing this long with the aromas and stenches of human emotions floating in the air. He looked up, eyes watering as he fought for air, and his eyes traveled back down to land on a very short girl who did not even come up to his shoulder. Despite her height, she must have been older than him.

She was a thing of contrasts, the girl. Her hair was blacker than his own, her skin a pale achieved only by albinism or bleach. Her glare – a whitish blue, paler even than Luna's starry gaze – penetrated deep into his eyes, and her hands pulled his away from his nose. She was grinning so widely, tears in her eyes.

"My goodness, you are a handsome one! Oh, my father was right to agree to this marriage! Imagine little old me, _engaged_ to the apprentice and heir of _the _Adrian Gethsemane! Oh, the girls at school are going to be envious of me!" She flung her arms around his shoulders, pushing Harry back into the bookshelf and her off her feet a little bit. Unhelpfully, Alice had backed away, somewhere between blinking in astonishment and giggling at the spectacle.

He inhaled the cleanest breath of air he could, better now that the jealous rage had faded from the dead air in the library, and pulled the pale girl off of him. "Who the bloody hell are you?" he asked, none too kindly. The situation did not merit kindness, and Harry was still half-suffocating on the scent of the dozens of herbal lotions on her hands. The girl gave a wider, ecstatic grin.

"I'm your fiancée, silly! Isabel Mag-upon-Mell, though you can call me Izzy; everybody does, I don't understand _why _ I had to be named something so dreadfully boring as Isabel, although," she paused and gave Harry a questioning look, "If you do like Isabel better than Izzy, you're very free to call me that!"

Possibly facing the most awkward conversation that had every existed, Harry opened his mouth dumbly and let it hang there, while his groggy mind attempted to find anything to say. Stumbling slightly, he muttered, "Well, um, Izzy is . . . is fine." She squealed, possibly making his ears bleed, and clung very tightly onto his arm. She pulled Harry away from Alice (who gave a little giggle and a wave of a good-bye, saying something about checking up on Caleb the gardener) and towards the heart of the library. A table had been set there, full of books, none of them looking too appealing.

"Oh, this is so exciting! I hope you don't mind, of course, I just had to come and see you sooner than expected! It's all good, though, that Olethea girl is off in that grimy little backwater town – River, is it? – and won't be back later, and that _horrible _traveler guy is somewhere, so I have you all to myself!"

"Um, Izzy –"

"Oh, you said my name! It sounds so refined coming from you, Mister Master Mage!"

"No, listen –"

"I hope you don't mind, but I've had a wedding planned since I was in charm school, and I just wanted to make sure you liked the ideas. They're so fun to plan that I don't mind doing it all again!" She forced him down into the seat, giving his side a merciful rest, and sat down opposite him, grinning like all her dreams had come true. Harry, however, felt his heart plummet and settle somewhere down in his stomach. All he could do was think of Ginny, missing him, maybe depressed (never sobbing; Ginny had kicked that habit when she was in second year, making her perhaps the only girl to do so), while he was here with another, far more annoying girl plotting a wedding.

Well, listening to her plot one, anyway.

He held up a hand to stop the incessant chatter coming from her mouth, and she blinked her eyes confusedly. "Listen, um, Izzy, it's not that I don't . . . well," (_Be blunt you bloody idiot, _snapped his mind), "I already have a girlfriend. Back home." _Behold Harry Potter, King of All Blatant and Bad Liars, _his mind said, giving a proverbial toast with the selfish part of his subconscious. He hated them all, and ignored the little question about the state of his sanity they offered back.

Isabel blinked twice, and narrowed them viciously. The pale quality burned like white fire, and she stood up, her knuckles cracking on the surface of the table. He was reminded, rather badly, of Mrs. Weasley when the twins had done something terrible, until the smell of rage boiled up around her. It had all the horrid signs of rotting meat, and so much worse. The sandwich brought itself back up to his throat.

"Oh? You do now?" she asked, casually, icily, "Well then, you listen up! You're _my _fiancée, and as long as she's not pregnant with your bastard child," (Ah, this writer writes with a laugh, what one would have paid to see the face of the wizard now as he heard that lovely bit), "I don't particularly care! Master Mages are hard to catch, you know, and my father was lucky enough to get me one when he's still an apprentice! I'm marrying you, and this other girl can go and –" The language was not pleasant, this writer shall not write it, and it brought a very unpleasant color to Harry's face as Ginny's sniggering face rose up into his head. Unsure of what else to do, eager to get rid of her rage, he nodded stupidly. Isabel clapped her hands happily.

"Good! Now then, I was thinking of having the wedding out in Spira – they have lovely waterside property, you know, or England! Ah, Westminster Abbey looks so beautiful . . ."

"England's good." Callously, albeit eagerly, he thought it would give him a chance of escaping and getting to the Order, finally out of the terrible mess fate had thrown him into. Even though the plan made the faintest bit of hope flare up into his stomach, he knew that he'd never have the courage to ruin a girl's wedding day, even if she did made sick rise up into the back of his throat at her smell.

Harry listened absently, almost embarrassed with every word, as Isabel began to prattle on and on about dresses and flowers and wondering which religion to have it under. All the while, his mind lingered longingly of Ginny and, to extents, everybody else back home. What was happening? Had the Death Eaters already won, or had the Order managed to fight back the assault? They were short Dumbledore, and now him, which must have been causing a disgusting fuss. And here he was, discussing (one-sidedly discussing, but still discussing) a _wedding_ . . .

Guilt smelled like bad fruit, he discovered. It oozed all around him, leaving him feeling more miserable than he had before. His head rested in his palm, only nodding every now and again when Isabel popped a bothersome question to him, but his mind was millions of miles away –

_He saw a place adorned in light, a chorus of angelical voices screeching a hymn up to the heavens. A minster was there – a minster or a cathedral, hell, just a church – covered in light. Not sunlight, moonlight, the glow of a golden moon – _

Harry sat up very straight, a cold sweat pouring down the back of his neck. His fingers were bent around the side of the table, white as could be, his throat very dry. In an instant, all the good health he had fought to achieve in the last few hours had died with a daydream. Isabel looked up curiously at him, her hands holding a book of wedding gowns. Curiously, she asked, "Is something the matter? Don't you like this dress?"

"I think I need . . . need to lie down," he said, in the process of standing up before both the sharp, twisting pain in his side and Isabel's glare put him back in the chair.

"Oh no you don't! I'm going to spend as much time as I can with you while I'm here!" Isabel set down the book she had been looking at, glaring viciously at Harry. "Maybe I'm boring you . . . how about I ask a couple questions about you, is that alright?" He guessed she probably wouldn't have taken his opinion into account anyway, and said little while she prattled off questions and inquiries.

That image was seared deep into his skull, taunting him with the glorious picture of the church (although he did not have very many memories of other churches. Uncle Vernon presumed he'd have burst into flames the second he walked into one). He hadn't caught a very good glimpse of it in the whole minute he had seen it, and most of it had been obscured in the golden moonlight that made his skin prickle in a strange internal fear. The picture, though, struck a more painful chord deep within his stomach. It had come with the same clarity and force that his looks into Voldemort's mind had been. The image of the church had been of the same kind as the image of the Department of Mysteries, of Sirius being told to bring down the prophecy on pain of death.

Was that were Voldemort was looking now? Was he searching for something hidden in a church, something of a holy name (certainly not of nature; the dark wizard would have burnt his hands clean off if he touched something truly blessed, this writer remarks) that was to be his next weapon? Was Harry going to sit in this damn manor-home watching Voldemort advance further on the destruction of all he cared about? And, if all of his concerned hypotheses were true, why had his scar not ached in the slightest?

". . . so, do you play?"

"What?" he asked, slipping from his thoughts with a bite of impatience. Isabel rolled her eyes.

"Do you play the piano? This is the third time I've asked!"

Hell of a question. One of his eyebrows raised despite himself and the sharp answer, "No," shot out. Isabel looked astonished, and not by mere descriptive standards. Her expression must have been near identical to Harry's own when Hagrid had revealed the secrets of his parentage and heritage.

"No piano? By God, what do they teach kids over in England! Alright, get up; I know His Grace must have a piano somewhere here . . . probably the parlor. Get up now!" She was already behind him and tugging on the collar of his shirt. He stared at her angrily.

"What for?"

"Oh don't play stupid! I have to teach you to play it; it's my _wifely _duty," she swelled with pride as she said the statement and pulled harder, her misshapen nails digging into his neck. He got to his feet, glowering down at her and pulling himself from her grip. "Honestly, you can't play the piano? That's horrible; _all _proper young men need to be able to serenade their wives with the melody of that instrument! Please say that you can play the violin, or the cello, or _something_?" She smelled desperate (it registered in the far back of Harry's head that it was unearthly how, already, he could tell which emotions were which by instinct alone. Perhaps it was why Professor Lupin had been so kind to people).

"Well, no." Harry had never so much as touched a working musical instrument in his life. When Dudley had been seven, he'd gotten a guitar for his birthday after seeing an American band play on his television, but the thing had lay broken in his second bedroom until Harry had moved in six years ago. Had he remained in the muggle school system, he probably would have had a chance to play something in orchestra, but most likely would never have.

Isabel's gaze widened further. "My God, you English are so . . . uncouth! Well, I'll have to remedy that right away! At my school, all proper young men are taught to play the piano and one other instrument. I will not stand for my husband to embarrass me while Catherine's husband can do a one-man orchestra!"

Harry scowled darkly. This is just what he needed; somebody else telling him that he had to be more sophisticated. The last person to do that had wound up making him look like a girl with the annoyingly long hair. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, following Isabel miserably down towards the parlor he was increasingly hating the sight of. She entered the room unannounced, obviously not caring if anybody was inside, and clapped her hands excitedly at the sight of the small black piano up towards the window.

"Goody! Go sit and I'll start my lesson; oh, that does feel odd to say." She pushed him forward, ignoring his sharp intake of breath at the pain that jabbed from his side. Harry thought briefly of saying something harsh to her, but could not rightly bring the words to his lips. What he did do, though, was sit obediently down at the piano, mad at himself for following the directions without questions (where had his will gone?). Isabel fluttered by the bookshelf, laughing annoyingly upon discovering a book of sheet music, and sat it down in front of him.

It looked like gibberish to him, just as all music looks to somebody who has never seen it before in their lifetime. Isabel took the seat next to him, a bit too close for comfort, and cracked her fingers irritatingly.

"Alright. I'm going to play a song, and you're going to copy it _exactly_." Her fingers danced around the ivory keys, making a sweet melody that sounded even sweeter in his head (and strangely familiar). He did, however, lose track of which keys she pressed in what order in a very short amount of time, and stared at her absently until she finished. Isabel smiled, leaning far too close to him, and said, "Your turn."

Blushing slightly, Harry pushed her aside and stared at the keys. He sighed heavily, straining a little, and hit a number of keys in what remotely sounded like the beginning of the song that Isabel had played. Three tentative notes into it, Isabel jammed her finger viciously into his side where the bite was. Not expecting it all, he gave a shout of pain and doubled over, his brow hitting the keys with an unpleasant sound. It felt like fire spiked through his body.

"BLOODY HELL!" He gave a furious glare to Isabel, the rank smell of anger boiling off him. "What the _hell _was that for!"

"Best way to learn is to avoid painful stimuli," she said simply. Not a hint of remorse crossed her features after seeing him double over like that. She tossed back her hair vainly. "Now, _pay attention_." She played the song again, with Harry forcing himself to stare at her fingers as best he could. Midway through the song, something small and furry moved up against his leg and he jumped lightly.

It was Gethsemane's calico cat, purring softly as it rubbed up against him and leapt up into his lap. It gave a soft meow and curled up, remaining there even after he doubled over when Isabel poked him in the side and snapped, "I said pay attention!"

The cat looked innocently up at him, its yellow eyes glittering laughingly. It seemed to have jumped up just to see him in pain. Harry scowled at it, hoping that some of the canine nature of his curse would reflect in his face and scare the thing out of the parlor, but it merely dug his claws deep into his leg and curled up tighter, asleep within seconds. With a sigh, he looked back at the piano while Isabel played the melody a third time.

"What's the song called anyway?" he asked, hoping to kill a bit of time before he had to try and play it himself.

"I don't know; it's from your world, don't you know it?"

"Do you know everything from your world?" he retorted. The surprise at how easily and swiftly the comeback had come, despite the oddity of the phrasing and the vocabulary, did not register with him immediately. Even after a few conscious days of being in Arcady, he was already accepting some of it.

"Not important! Play the song!"

The lesson went on in such a manner for quite some time. Harry, while gifted in flying and some advanced spellwork, did not have a very good ear for music. Even if the song he played sounded like the one Isabel had tapped out in his head, she would still poke her long finger into his side and snap for him to listen closer and do it better. The longer he sat at the piano, the more he began to despise it, and the more his attention began to slip towards the view of the world outside the window.

He didn't realize exactly how much he missed flying until he stared at the blue sky. The rain had gone, and a beautiful, endless cerulean was back in place. It looked like excellent weather to pick up a broom and soar around the sky for a while. Harry sighed miserably, and tried to mimic the sounds that Isabel had produced easily. He was still staring absently out the window until, quite suddenly, he recalled where he had heard the song before.

Aunt Petunia used to hum the same melody to Dudley when they'd been young. Vividly, and rather painfully, he remembered one occasion when he'd been four, shut up in his cupboard for the evening. Aunt Petunia was climbing the stairs, holding her increasingly fattening child in her arms, humming the song loud enough for the echoes to reverberate inside of his pathetic room. He remembered curled up near the cobwebs, wondering how unfair it was that nobody ever sang to him.

"Wow. That sounded beautiful."

Harry ignored Isabel's statement as best he could. The cat in his lap rubbed up against his chest, giving a proud purr, the bell on its collar giving an annoying ring. He looked down at the tag on the collar, hidden under the bell. In a curly script read the name _Gerade. _Isabel cracked her knuckles again.

"Well, you mastered that pretty quickly! Alright, play it again, only this time change it up a bit; like this." He looked mournfully at the pattern she tapped out so beautifully. He had a feeling that she'd probably cause his wound to open up and bleed by the time he'd played a song satisfactory. Harry turned and looked at her, thinking of a half-baked idea and putting it into execution before he'd fully thought it through.

"I don't think you've told me about yourself at all. What about your family?"

Isabel rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Oh, don't get me started on them! Twelve siblings, I tell you, are horrible things to live with; and those are just the full siblings, I don't think I know how many bastard half-brothers and sisters are running around. I'm, of course, the best of all of them; top marks in three of my classes, and these are the best of the best . . ."

He settled into a comfortable slump, scratching Gerade behind his ears (with a name such as that, Harry supposed that the cat must have been a male, and something about the smell of the animal told him that he was right) and listening as Isabel prattled on and on about everything that came to her mind in that moment. Harry's thoughts, though, flickered back to Ginny.

He thought of her long red hair glistening in the sunshine as she shot back remarks at Fred and George without missing a beat, about how the wind brushed against her as she flew with the other Chasers in the Quidditch match last year, about how she had stood beside him in the Department of Mysteries, brave as Gryffindor himself. He thought about how much he missed her, about how she must be upset that he was gone, just how everyone must have been upset. Harry did wonder, vaguely, who was upset that he had gone missing, and who missed him.

Gerade rubbed his head in Harry's palm, demanding immediate attention and affection. He sighed. Isabel still was talking, rolling her knuckles over the black keys on the piano, while Harry stared out the window, surprisingly envious of the songbird fluttering into the deep blue of the heavens, without a care in the world.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers.

Parentless are from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, which is property of Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.

Spira is from Final Fantasy X, owned by Square Enix.

I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

Well, I fail royally at humor. ::bad laugh::

Isabel isn't meant to be a serious character at all; if anything she's a mockery of some stereotypes and an idiot in the fairest uses of the terms. Don't expect much romance between them, I'm going by canon for that – and what fine canon that is.

My sister tried to teach me piano like that. I play just about as well as he does.

On another note, I'm going to be going on vacation in a few days and after that I need to attend to the pile of ignored and dusty homework before September rolls around, so I doubt there'll be much activity for a little bit, unfortunately. So until then, I hope this will do.

[**Statistics**

[_Pages_ 11

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[_Words_ 5,804

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[_Font_ Times New Roman

[_Font Size_ 12


	7. Existenz

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Sieben

Existenz

* * *

[**Twilight**

I was stained, with a role, in a day not my own  
But as you walked into my life

You showed what needed to be shown  
And I always knew, what was right

I just didn't know that I might  
Peel away and choose to see with such a different sight

[**Vanessa Carlton**

* * *

The days began to pass in a certain pattern, Harry noticed. Everything became a monotonous steam of activity after a period of time; life has that ability that no other concept possesses. Instinctively, all humans distrust the simplicity, but they are conditioned to accept and ignore their distrust. Perhaps due to the bit of inhumanity that festered in the depths of his being, Harry was the exception to this theorem, and enjoyed it when the days had stopped being filled with something new and relatively unexplainable. It put some order back into a life that had wondered if organization had died out with the Dark Ages.

The painful reaction he'd had to the bite had disappeared with time, as had the horrible sensitivity from the wound. Yes, the skin remained bruised and the scar a furious and ugly red, but it no longer hurt when Isabel jammed her finger there and demanded he play the song better and stop staring out the window (though, this writer remarks, it could have easily have gone completely numb to the advances of an angry finger). The curse seemed to have had a good effect on him, at least in the primary stage – he was of a healthier color and step, though it was promised to change the minute he endured the first full moon.

The unhappy flipside to the pattern Harry's life had sunk into had been the beginning of his lessons with the teachers Gethsemane had maliciously provided to him. Wynn was still away on business, flittering between Rivage and the multitude of other realms that Harry was glad he didn't have to memorize the names of, and Elfin Dreg had not yet shown his face anywhere. Olethea, the stiff and ever-proper Lesser Magistrate of Gethsemane's estates, was his only professor for the moment, and she injected no life into her syllabus and lessons.

"I am very proud to have been selected a teacher to you, milord," she had said their first lesson, deep in the depths of the library at Samedi, bowing low and beckoning Harry forward to the table she had set out meticulously. It was far worse than Hermione's organization come exam time; the books were piled alphabetically and every conceivable writing utensil was placed by size where a right hand would rest on a desk. "As I am but a lowly servant in the employment of His Grace, I can teach you little other than theory. I am honored to be in your service, Sir Apprentice."

By the end of the lesson, Harry would have been glad if he'd been called bastard for the remainder of his lifetime. The time with Olethea and her incessant need to address him properly as Gethsemane's apprentice (although he still hated the fact he'd been shoved here against his will) had been enough for the rest of his existence.

Olethea was a teacher of Umbridge's caliber, which was to say, no caliber at all. She was no witch or mage or sorceress herself (the terms were interchangeable, unlike in England, and depended upon the realm one was in), and could only teach Harry magical theory. Yet even before that, there was the unhappy obstacle of a language barrier. Gethsemane's library was extensive and rich – it extended beyond the confines of the room itself, and had swallowed two librarians in its depths – and as with all fine libraries, the books were written in multiple tongues, and Harry only could read English. It was an affliction that Olethea was set to eliminate him of, though it was painfully obvious she was unused to teaching. He spent the first and only three lessons sitting at the table, copying and translating passages from children's books (an embarrassing situation that, this writer explains, he left out of his tale to Ron and Hermione) for hours at a time.

Three lessons, each about seven hours in length, had gotten him the reading skills of a six-year-old (or the rough equivalent when it came to immortal beings) when it came to the languages of Galldr and Nordic ruins – basics in some of the rudimentary magic tomes – and an intense dislike for Rivierian fables. Isabel, compounded agonizingly upon Olethea, decided that Harry was a disgraceful human being for not knowing how to play the piano and cello, and was hell-bent on having him master the skills before she left for her school at the beginning of September. When Olethea had him finish, the dark haired and annoying girl would drag Harry back into the parlor and force him to play until the sun had set. He was more than giddy when she left after a week to return to the capital for her school term, and promptly forget any and all musical knowledge.

He doubted he'd be able to use his right hand ever again after the lessons, either. Hand cramps _burned. _

"At least it's better than weeding flowerbeds all day," Alice said after hearing the full story of why his hand looked as though it had been frozen by carpal tunnel. It was the middle of August today, with the bright and shimmering summer sun glittering over head and making the river in the garden dance like crystalline. Harry, nursing his stiff hand, stood over Alice as she knelt by a patch of daffodils. There was something a tad bit puzzling about the garden, in that it didn't make Harry break down into a coughing fit from the amount of aromas encircling the area. Perhaps he was simply becoming more used to the heightened senses, but it was far more likely that something magical was afoot.

He thought of the many summers he had spent in Aunt Petunia's gardens, and honestly responded; "No, not really."

Alice gave a grin, trying to keep her lips held over her crooked teeth. Her brow was slick with sweat from working outside all day. "You know," she confessed, shoving the trowel in the dirt and pushing back her hair, "It's sort of nice to know that you're not a stuck up jerk. I mean, um . . ." she flushed instantly at the honesty in her words, while Harry gave a bit of a laugh. This writer was not making a glossy generalization; the monotonous lifestyle of getting up and transcribing things from books for hours on end had done Harry some real good. His mood had lightened considerably when out of work. Alice coughed nervously and returned to her awkward conversation, "I didn't mean it like you were supposed to be a stuck up jerk – which you aren't! – but I always thought that, well . . ."

"The Boy-Who-Lived would be a spoiled brat?" Harry offered, giving a grin despite himself. Alice flushed deeper.

"No, not that! I meant, well, Mister Gethsemane's apprentice . . ." she gave a sheepish grin, "Perhaps I should just stop talking."

He laughed a little bit, easing up Alice's stiff embarrassment, and looked up at the sky. Wynn still hadn't come back with what he had promised to bring – his trunk and Hedwig and, what was nagging at his stomach, his Firebolt. That would bring him no end of joy, especially since he was allowed to come out whenever he felt like it. He'd never had that sort of freedom at home; there had always been a curfew or some law of protection or threat of mortal peril restricting flight.

Harry stood up straighter, cracking his stiff back. It had been hurting him a lot, as of late. Perhaps due to the time he'd spent hunched over reading from books almost as boring as Professor Binns' class.

"What's Hogwarts like?" Alice suddenly asked, yanking a dandelion from the ground, roots and all, "Is there a werewolf professor? Kerry wrote home – I remember since it was right before I came to Rivage – raving about him. My whole family's crazy when it comes to, um . . . people like that." She looked hasty and continued correcting herself, "I mean, I'm not! I guess maybe it's from being here so long. I mean, one of the gardeners, Rhinoa – she's not here anymore but . . ."

"Professor Lupin?" Harry asked, interrupting Alice's tirade, "He resigned about three years ago. People like your sister didn't like it." He thought again of his own condition, and was glad he kept it quite from Alice. Prejudices had a bad habit of cropping up even amongst liberal people. "Best teacher the post ever had."

"The jinxed post?" Alice grinned a little, "Kerry always failed that class. Angered mum and dad to no end. Gosh! I hate working in this heart." She stood up, marvelously shorter than Harry but still far taller than tiny Isabel, and rolled her shoulders back. "Do you think you could get me a break?"

He raised an eyebrow. "How could I –?" Something that Gethsemane had said crawled its way out of the depths of his memory, before the bastard had gotten Harry's humanity twisted. _You are above everybody except the King in the eyes of the public_. Did Alice mean for him to get her off work for the day? He changed his question. "So I'm your ticket to a day off from work?"

Alice went scarlet in embarrassment. "N-no! I mean, I don't mean it like that! I thought, maybe . . . um, you'd like to head down to Rivage? It's such a nice day and you haven't been down there yet, right?" She hid her face in her hand, and Harry felt a bit guilty for making her so embarrassed. He nodded, and pushed hair out of his face. He wished he could get it cut short, but figured that Gethsemane would just charm it long again.

"That sounds good," he confessed, and Alice gave a smile.

"You just need to explain it to Mike; he's my immediate boss. Should be down by the water, I think." She undid the straps of her leather apron, revealing rather nondescript and dirt stained clothing beneath. "Rivage is so pretty on days like this; the river's just the right level so all the kids are down there and not running around. Especially that little Celestialite girl – cute kid, Raffi, but . . ." Alice shivered uneasily.

"Celestialite?" A strange image of some ethereal, angelic creature was brought to mind, an image that was quickly shattered when Alice continued.

"Wynn once took me there for Masquerade; their country motto is . . ." She paused for a moment and began to recite, "Living in Celestia is . . . like living in a bar at happy hour. Everybody's drunk, there are a lot of problems nobody tends to and – oh bugger what's the last part . . . ah – it doesn't take much to find a good time." He blinked several times at such a peculiar statement, as dozens of men and women have done before him, but couldn't help but give a wide smile at how happy the people there must be. Alice continued, "They let their kids run nuts everywhere; Raffi's the worst of them all, I imagine."

Before the pair of them, two small creatures darted out from the bushes and crossed the path before him and Alice. It was Gerade, the calico cat that had taken to following Harry like a red-and-brown shadow, chasing the small blue cabbit whose name and species he still didn't. Alice smiled, "Cute little things . . . come on."

"What's the blue thing?" he asked and Alice gave him a funny look, perhaps before remembering that he was still unused to almost everything at Samedi, let alone the whole of Arcady.

"She's a Cheagle. Mister Gethsemane received her as a gift from somebody in Auldrant; oh I do hope that cat doesn't catch her." Alice tugged on Harry's sleeve and pulled him forward as the cat and the Cheagle disappeared back into the bushes, disturbing the dying roses as they did.

Harry breathed in deep the smell of the sea; the unfamiliar taste of salt in the air burned pleasantly on his tongue and the breeze rustled through his hair (it had gotten wiry and extremely unappealing, despite whatever Alice and the maids told to him. The effect was that much of Harry's face and eyes were hidden with the exception of his very green eyes, making him appear very much like an eccentric or a madman). He had never had the pleasure of being by the sea, as this writer has previously mentioned, and found it a rather soothing and serene location. This picture contrasted very sharply with the intense dislike the wizard was developing for the seaside Château itself.

Alice chatted animatedly as she led him through the labyrinthine garden pathway, passed plants that moved with them and seemed almost sentient in their twitches. She asked about the status Quidditch teams – with the Harpies being her particular favorite, about Hogwarts and the Weird Sisters and other aspects of wizarding pop culture that Lavender and Pavarti had particularly gossiped about (she kept asking about a particular celebrity, Rhodri Llewellyn, whom Harry was sure he had heard of but knew absolutely nothing about). He was happy to answer what he could, but left out everything he could about Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and his role in recent battles with the two of them.

Perhaps a sad, unconscious aspect of being entirely cut off from his native England, as he was, but Harry had begun to permit his mind to place the troubles out of his mind. It was not a conscious effort, and whenever he realized that he grew particularly furious with himself for being selfish and allowing himself peace when his world was, undoubtedly, either in mourning or blind panic at his disappearance. Yet Harry could not help it – Olethea, for all her faults as a teacher, kept his mind occupied on the tedious subjects, Isabel had left him with a fairly irrational hatred of all things musical, and the others at Samedi did their best to make his confinement there pleasing. It was a distraction that worked; he thought less and less about Hogwarts and all those connected to it.

This was not an action that Harry was proud of. It was subtle enough to go undetected by Alice and her fellow employees of Gethsemane, but if Ron or Hermione had been there, they would have easily been startled by the change in step of their normally morose and angry friend.

"So how did Ireland win the Cup if Bulgaria caught the Snitch? Were they _that _ahead in points?" Alice was almost as big a fan of Quidditch as Ginny or Ron – almost, but not quite.

"Yeah, they were."

"How did Wales do in the running for the match? Did they just loose out?"

". . . no, actually, they did very poorly." Struggling his memories back to his fourth year – an eternity ago, it seemed – Harry continued, "Lost abysmally to Algeria, 380 to 40." He gave a grin at the look of complete disbelief and horror that doused Alice's round face.

Eventually, she stumbled onto the company of her supervisor, whose real name was in a language so bizarre and unearthly that even he didn't seem to understand it completely but translated easiest into Michael. Harry could not help but drop his jaw in shock at the sight of the gardener. He was particularly tall and lanky, almost as tall as Hagrid but with the weight of a sickly beanpole, with nearly gray skin. (It was gray-blue, in truth, but there was very little blue in it.) Michael gave a fanged grin at Alice and Harry.

"Hello, hello there, Sir Apprentice! I do hope that Drysi here hasn't paid you much trouble!" Even Alice was fighting back a wince at Michael's voice; one must pity poor Harry who had to clamp his teeth down on his tongue to keep the gag of surprise in his throat.

"Not at all," he eventually managed to choke out, smiling uneasily. He was quite sure that he never wanted to find himself in the world that Michael came from. "In fact, she has offered to lead me to Rivage."

The gardener cast two very glaring, iridescent eyes down on tiny Alice, who kept her head bowed and gave a curtsy to her boss, but the look was far kinder when it fell upon Harry. "Of course, of course, Sir Apprentice; I consider it a compliment when you allow one of my own inferiors to attend to your wishes! Please, do enjoy Rivage – it will be quite enjoyable in this beautiful weather, and send my deepest regards to Doctor Milligan for patching up Caleb!"

"Who?" Harry asked once that Alice and him had, mercifully, parted company with the gardener and his painful voice.

"He's the doctor who was here for your injuries, the Leumarian. They have blue hair, from Weyard." Harry recalled the rather rude physician and gave a sharp nod. Hair flopped into his face annoyingly.

"How are we getting to Rivage; Floo Powder?" Strangely, Alice gave a laugh, causing him to raise his eyebrow. She immediately set into an explanation that she claimed to have been a very funny story, though she did not explain it quite so humorously. A year ago, there had been a rather new butler placed in Gethsemane's service by the name of Isaac Madison. Madison had always been a clumsy and rather inept servant and once mistook a jar of Floo Powder for a jar of snuff. The venerable drug addict that he was, he snorted a pinch, and immediately was sent into a sneezing fit coupled with random Apparition into various parts of the Château and the surrounding countryside. This had culminated in poor Madison landing on top of the Master Mage's table while he was entertaining the wife of Nikoli Mandylion.

"Where's he now?" Harry found himself asking, although he had a feeling the butler's fate had not been a pleasant one.

"In Rivage." Alice's grin spread wider across her face. "He's – oh bother, what was his exact curse now. Ah! – He's cursed to be a bookseller of particularly badly written books. Last time he was attempting to sell off a copy of _Bonfire of the Vanities _in Hylian, I think, for forty-eight pounds. At least, I _think _that's what ninety gil amounts to . . . But anyway, His Grace no longer keeps Floo Powder here; don't see why he ever did, considering he just teleports wherever he wants."

Rather at a loss for other ideas of alternate means transportation (having spent a little too long in the wizarding world and out of the muggle world), Harry was unhappily surprised when she mentioned that, without a horse or bicycle, the only way to Rivage was walking the whole of the fifteen miles, and Gethsemane was not particularly fond of horses or bicycles, due to the irritation of learning to ride both.

As far as roads go, it was an enjoyable one. It had been carved out next to the river, dropping the temperature rather considerably, and snaked around the green countryside. However, it was very long and unpaved, so that many travelers had swollen feet by the time they reached their destination. Alice was out of breath soon after they began their walk, Harry was not. Had the wizard been known to skip in particularly good moods, he would have, but it was so against his character that the skip was instead a brisk and cheery walk. In the long, Gryffindor-scarlet coat he had begun to wear and with his hair longer than most girls', anybody who had known him prior to August would not have recognized him.

For, this writer remarks, this was amongst the few times that Harry had been allowed to chose what he wanted to do, with a guide and not an escort, and that feeling of freedom was exhilarating. There was no Mundungus Fletcher or Kingsley Shaklebolt sent to monitor his actions during the summer, no Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore to watch his actions during school time, no Hermione Granger to warn him against harsher courses of action. There was just Harry, humming a Celestina Warbeck song, and Alice wheezing as she asked where his energy came from.

* * *

A deep, heavy clunking disrupted Harry's story. It was immediately noticeable; with the first vibration of a wooden leg on wooden floor, the wizard's mouth clamped shut and his jaw locked. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword and Hermione had to quickly remind him that, "It's just Mad-Eye, Harry!" to get him to relax more.

"Moody, right?" he asked and Ron nodded, grinning. It was forced and very obviously so.

"You forgot about Moody? Lucky sod."

Surprisingly, Harry gave a smile and a low chuckle. "Suppose that _is _rather hard, isn't it?" He stood up straight, cracking his back and towering over Ron (much to the Weasley's discontent, having been fond of at least being taller than the Boy-Who-Lived), and reaching into his pocket for a something wrapped in cheesecloth. He looked at Ginny intently, with disturbingly vibrant green eyes.

Ginny shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. She wanted to curse herself, snarl out swears at her tactlessness, but could only summon the resounding feeling of strangeness when in Harry's company. This was not the young man she had always found good-looking, despite his rather malnourished stature and rats nested hair, and whose company she had always enjoyed, never mind his bouts of depression and rage. However great this person was to Harry's likeness (or rather, a green-eyed, longer-haired version of James Potter, in her opinion), she did not feel anything. Well – she did feel pity and great horror when she heard his story, but it was the pity one hears when listening to a sad stranger's story.

"I'd kept a couple of things for you all," he said, speaking directly to Ginny, "Though only yours actually made it back to England." He handed her the small bundle of cheesecloth, and Ron made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. He, like his sister, seemed to view this Harry as only a distantly related entity to the one he had known, and thus was rather put-off by such a stranger presenting Ginny with a gift.

She took the item, smiled, but did not unwrap it. "Thanks, Harry." He nodded and leaned his weight heavily upon the long sword.

"Perhaps I've spent too much time talking," he said, his voice hoarse enough to back up his claim, "Though I don't think much has really happened here, has it?"

Hermione sat down on the bed that Harry had vacated, a great cloud of dust rising up from the sheets. Her analytical eye sought to find anything upon her friend's person that he had failed to mention in his already-lengthy tale. Barely visible was a refraction of light around his person; the dim, dusty light from the bedroom's candle chandelier bounced off and around his aura. This, of course, was a common side-effect of any Glamour Charm (which, owing to the disguising nature of the spell itself, is illegal under Ministry statute unless in the Auror department. Otherwise, too any people would be wandering around looking different, murders were bound to be tripled, and makers of Polyjuice Potion would fall out of business).

"What's your Glamour for?" she asked of him suspiciously, and Harry gave her his wide, familiar smile.

"They aren't illegal in the Green, I'll have you know," he told her. Hermione, thereafter, was forced into a long and tedious explanation of the charms to a befuddled looking Ron. When she had finished, the redhead eyed Harry with suspicion.

"You look _even more different _that you needed a charm to look like _this_?" In response to Ron's inquiry (which Harry appeared to have taken for mere disbelief), he extended his hand and asked if he may borrow Ron's wand for a moment as a way of an answer. After exchanging a glance with Hermione – nonverbally asking her if it was a reasonable idea, he pulled the wand from the back pocket of his jeans.

Harry fingered Ron's wand delicately, perhaps amazed by the nostalgia in the simple little piece of wood. "England always did have the best wandmakers," he said, allowing a little bit of nationalistic pride to enter his voice. He rolled up the sleeve of his coat and jacket and said, "_Finiate Incantatem_."

Immediately, the change spread down his arm from the elbow. The skin darkened, as if tanned under a blistering sun, and dozens of white scars and healed up burns sprang into existence. A bizarre, twisting pattern of alabaster skin, paler than the palest of albino coloring, appeared upon his forearm and an even more intricate design spread out onto his palm; a pentagram of many archaic, serpentine symbols around a caduceus. Yet, most prominent of all, were his fingers.

The fingers of that poor, miserable left hand – which, readers should remember, has already endured quite a bit at the hands of cruel Adrian Gethsemane – allow no sufficient description to be applied to them. Yet, this writer attempts to inform her loyal readers that two of them (thumb and little) were certainly of an inhuman origin, one must have belonged to a female hand, and none of them had belonged to Harry Potter when he had arrived to Arcady five years ago by his calendar.

Their amalgamated state, at least, explained why his fingers appeared broken.

Ron gave a rather unpleasant shout of rather explicit words (none of which Mrs. Weasley would have appreciated her son knowing) and Hermione swallowed quite painfully. "What on _earth_ . . ."

"There _was _a reason a Glamour was on them." He flexed his fingers oddly, half-interest on his face. "More than half the magic in existence moves through blood, and this is the only way to get to that." He tapped his arm again with Ron's wand, and was not the only one who was exceedingly pleased when it reverted back to its pale, but normal, state. When he handed Ron back his wand, Harry saw that Ginny had left the room, and the door was left very open behind her. It was uninviting, despite its position.

Ginny had not gone very far. She stood just outside of Sirius's old bedroom, feeling particularly sick and miserable with herself for running. Full of a lovesick, sixteen-year-old brand of angst, she listened as Harry picked up his story again and slowly opened the little thing wrapped in cheesecloth.

The most beautiful thing she had ever seen lay in her palm. A snitch, made from something that looked so much like gold that it certainly could not be the metal, attached to a spun chain that glittered of its own accord. In Quenya, a language that was praised in the Green as one of the most beautiful ever developed, words that translated roughly to _Ginny, I hope you did Gryffindor proud in Quidditch _were inscribed. (Roughly, of course, because Quenya lacked words for 'Ginny', 'Gryffindor', and 'Quidditch').

* * *

Perhaps owing to some form of weather-magic or another, it was still high noon by the time that Harry and Alice had set foot into the town of Rivage. The sky was a cloudless blue that spiraled on and on up towards oblivion, with birds (and other avian creatures of like physiology) soaring high without a care in the world. Down below, where the people dwelt, the ideology seemed to have passed onto them.

Harry was mildly surprised about how similar Rivage was to Hogsmead, except far busier and larger. Even on the outskirts of the town, there were people in various outfits of importance hurrying towards the bazaar, and many of them were not quite people at all. Quite stupefied, Harry watched as a giant of a man with the features of a lion dragged his daughter (who looked quite like a meowling housecat) out into the street owing to her laziness, and a white-winged man in a pinstripe suit asking people if they had seen his book.

"You really shouldn't stare!" Alice giggled at his side, though it was clear that she was enjoying the moment. It probably was not often that she got a chance to be smarter than somebody in Harry's position. Still staring, she lead him through the town streets – where all the buildings were small cottages with Medieval-style roves – towards where the action was truly happening.

Rivage's marketplace was a whirlwind of mercantilist activity. People were buying and trading things at every twist and turn, some exchanging goods for animals and crafts and others with a myriad of different moneys (one man was furiously trying to buy a sword with guineas when it was clear the blacksmith spoke some form of backwards Japanese). A guitar-player attracted a great deal of attention by a water fountain, singing melodically in English with girls of many races and species swooning happily at his feet. Two young men in armor befitting old knights were outside a bar, yelling cat-calls at a girl with cat ears and tail.

It was quite overwhelming, considering that Harry had been locked away in Samedi for the greater part of August. However, the smile didn't drop once from his face.

"You don't have any money on you, do you?" Alice asked quite suddenly, yelling over the guitarist's music. He stared at her.

"_No_! I don't even recognize half the things here, let alone the money!" Alice went viciously scarlet and apologized hurriedly, though the look on his face showed his tone wasn't accusatory. Harry moved through the crowds of people surrounding a particular booth, earning a reproachful look from a woman who seemed to be growing flowers out of her emerald hair. The merchant was eagerly showing off his wears.

". . . the sword of the Paladin Roland of Elibe, polished and ready to be used to slay any sort of dragon that crosses your path – no offenses meant, Missy, not _your _kind of dragon! And here is a vial of Bacillus nanomachines – if you're tired of people annoying you, well just drink their blood! Only three hundred gil, taking orders _now_!"

Harry's eyes looked over the various memorabilia scattered on the table. Among other things, he saw a dragon egg, a various selection of watches, rings, mirrors, hats, and scarves, several packs of cards, horns, a shriveled human hand in a jar, powdered fairy wings, locks of hair, feathers upon feathers wrapped together with golden string, musical instruments stacked up next to the stand, fruit kept in bags, undetonated bombs, combs, hairbrushes, a ratty sneaker, and a rat that reminded him quite a bit of Scabbers. In short, most of it was the sort of pseudo-magical junk that existed in muggle shops, and none of it of particular interest.

"Young man, I see that you're interested in the watches!" (Harry's eyes had landed upon a pocket watch with five hands and no numbers that, among other things, looked broken). "Only fifty-four gold, but if you buy today, it's only fifty-three and a half!"

Alice had left him, and he found her again talking pleasantly with a florist who appeared quite human, but did not have the aura of one. However, the brown-haired woman gave a sweet smile at Harry. "So are you friends with Miss. Drysi?" she asked with a voice like a Veela's. He supposed it was the werewolf in him that made him immune to the charm, for which he was grateful.

"He's His Grace's new apprentice Millia!" Alice said excitedly, and Millia's great brown eyes widened massively.

"Oh you poor thing!" she said with exaggerated sympathy, and presented Harry with a very fine bundle of emerald-green roses and mother-of-pearl lilies that, somehow, reminded Harry greatly of his mother. They smelled, not like flowers, but of love and hope for the future. "I do hope that you'll be able to do some good for the Green. All those other Mages only care about cocktail parties." Alice looked quite scandalized, but Millia ignored her. "Maybe someday you can bring back some light into Tuonela."

"Tuonela?" he asked, fighting back a sneeze.

Millia smiled. "Such innocence! It was a fief south of Arcady, that fell to the shadows. Even the Raven King couldn't help us." She sighed deeply and turned her attention to another customer. Harry thanked her for the flowers, though found himself greatly surprised when the roses and lilies had transformed into a long, green and white scarf that he tied around his neck.

"Millia was a cousin of the Liege of Tuonela," Alice explained when he asked her, "I think, though, she likes the sea more than the snow of her original home. More flowers. _I _certainly do."

"She ended up selling flowers after it fell?" The bigger they are, the harder they fall even happened in the Green, Harry thought with a little bit of pleasure.

"Oh, people love flowers! Always full of magic; she does very good for herself!"

The smell of roasting meat caught his attention and churned his mostly empty stomach. Harry turned, his expression very much like that of a dog who was about to be fed, and turned quite green when he saw that the smell was coming from something that looked a little too human-like for his tastes. (He was not at all convinced when Alice gave a quick explanation that it was just a shapeshifting pig). Still hungry, however, he traded in his red coat for two sandwiches and an impressive sum of various coins from an ecstatic chef who hugged the garment like all his dreams had come true.

Harry, however, was far more ecstatic about the excellent taste of the sandwich.

He and Alice found an unoccupied bench by the water fountain (with a female mermaid in the center who looked amazingly life-like) to eat and enjoy the people walking by. Alice struck up a conversation he was only half-interested in, with his attention a bit more captured by a vendor in Victorian clothing selling paper wings that became real when attached to ones back. He was very sure that Hermione would be in hysterical happiness at having various things to examine, numerous bookshops to carouse and, probably with his status as Gethsemane's apprentice, purchase things for free. He was quite sure that Ron and Ginny, Neville and Luna would enjoy Rivage as well – Ron for the food, Ginny with the oddities, Neville for the massive quality of magical plants, and Luna with the general feeling of eeriness that swarmed around the heads of everybody who wandered through shops and stands.

Nostalgia came in swift, accompanied by a resounding feeling of misery. He sighed unhappily and allowed a particularly large, yellowish pigeon to finish off the rest of his sandwich.

"You shouldn't have done that. It was good Snockack."

"_What_." Alice blinked strangely at him and pulled back the bread of her sandwich.

"Crumple-Horn Snockack. There's a ranch of them out past Rivage, I think – Oswald knows the owner." She didn't quite understand why Harry burst into laughter, clutching at his sides.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

Oh boy. ::inhales a deep breath::

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers.

Galldr belongs to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, owned by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, not me.

Riviera belongs to, well, Riviera: The Promised Land, owned by Sting and Atlus, not me.

Celestia belongs in Saint Faren's Kin, owned by Jessica Bawgus, not me.

Hylian belongs to The Legend of Zelda, which belongs to Nintendo, not me.

Leumaria belongs to Golden Sun, owned by Camelot and Nintendo, not me.

Quenya belongs in The Lord of the Rings, owned by JRR Tolkein, not me.

The Paladin Roland of Elibe belongs in Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, owned by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, not me.

Bacillus nanomachines are from Trinity Blood, owned by Sunao Yoshida, not me.

The Raven King is from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, written by Susanna Clarke, not me.

::collapses on floor, out of breath::

Okay, okay, so its been a month since I updated this and instead put out two new stories. Yeah. Well, at least I got back to work, eventually.

School has started, and with it two AP classes and a creative writing one, which probably will leave me in such a hatred of writing I will leave fanfiction for a bit. Maybe. Probably not.

[**Statistics**

[_Pages_ 12

[_Paragraphs_ 108

[_Lines_ 525

[_Words_ 5,942

[_Characters_ 33,797

[_Font_ Times New Roman

[_Font Size_ 12


	8. Lesestift

**--Patina--**

Kapitel Acht

Lesestift

* * *

**[Flathead**

It's just so wrong so very nice I told you  
Once and you killed me twice  
I saw you one time at the back of the club  
Chewing on glass and a ticket stub

I heard they kicked the boy till he bled,  
Then stood and said Oh My God till she said –

**[The Fratellis**

* * *

For a moment, Harry Potter's story in Grimmauld Place and his tale-within-a-tale of his visit to Rivage must be interrupted. This writer expresses her apologies and says that, within the confines of a few simple paragraphs, her loyal readers shall be returned to what they have been waiting for. For the sake of allowing these loyal readers the full scope of the story of Lord Gethsemane's apprentice, the beloved Boy-Who-Lived of England's magic, this writer is obligated to allow some time to be given to one Adrian Gethsemane. In particular, the events surrounding his task from Gabrielle Edessa are to be explained in this detour.

Wynn Sambuca stood by his side, shifting a tad uneasily as he adjusted the weight of his scarlet robes. His aura, now, matched the color of his garment and his tone was clipped. "Your Grace, I have still yet to obtain the items you have asked me to acquire for your Sir Apprentice, and if I am to complete that task in the time you asked then –" He was silenced immediately when Gethsemane fixed him with a cold look. It was quite puzzling how eyes the color of hellfire could do that.

"If you are so very adamant about leaving my company, Wynn, then go do so." Wynn knew that there really was no option for him, and instead held back as Gethsemane moved forwards – towards a tall stone archway that, by the calendar of England and Earth, was older than the planet itself. A breeze only touched the tattered veil that hung from it, and screams of the dead threw every insult, terror, and swear towards the inhumanity of the two men who stood in what was once the Ministry of Magic's only execution chamber.

Wynn held tightly onto the lid and body of a massive silver vase that, in some aspects, resembled a cage far more than a vase. Symbols of imprisonment from hundreds of different religions and mythos were engraved upon the surface over and over again, overlapping in more than one place. There was a flintlock pistol slapped at his side, and an English wand slipped into his pocket. Gethsemane himself carried a weapon, though there was no proper way to describe it without going into languages that could not be put to paper. His coat hung off his shoulders, and fluttered as he moved close and closer to the tattered veil that had swallowed hundreds of convicted felons.

And for a long, long time, there was only darkness. It bothered Gethsemane not a bit. He was, after all, inhuman – he had confessed that much to Harry.

Voices wailed and wallowed all about him, recounting their final words, begging the Ministry for a final opportunity to prove their innocence and that it was the Minister who was the murderer. Gethsemane waved his hand with the carelessness of brushing back loose hair, and the prisoners were silenced, as they had been centuries ago. The veil had not been used since 1497, when the Dementors had been brought to England from parts unknown (in actuality, the fallen fiefdom of Reed. The Liege of Reed had been rather bored, fashioned the Dementors up in a week, and set them loose to the highest bidder).

Others who had been condemned beyond the archway, the _it_all magicians feared because – as Gethsemane now felt – the spirits clutched their dead hands around his magic. They clutched and dragged and pulled him further into the depths, towards the pits of hell.

To which, he grinned, and snapped his fingers. They dispelled, with a sound that would have driven a man to madness. Even the venerable Liege of Arcady flinched backwards, composure cracked, muffling a sound in his throat.

_**What do you want Mage! **_called out a voice, an amalgamation of the screams formed into coherent words. Gethsemane, in the darkness with his corporal form only in half-existence, adjusted his coat and long red hair.

"A member of your mass," he said composed, "Who failed because of the broken Law." More souls tugged at his magic. In the darkness, hands appeared – many broken, some inhuman, most dead, gray, and decomposing – and grasped at his legs and coat for the warmth of living flesh. With an impatient _hrmph_of Gethsemane's glossy voice, the hands caught fire and burned like will-o-wisps around him, the souls screaming.

_**Why should We honor your bargain, Mage. We have you now, you shall not escape from Us. **_Had screaming possessed the ability to sound mirthful, the conglomerate would have done so.

Gethsemane's voice, however, did possess the power to laugh and he exercised that power fervently at that moment. "You have no sway over me. I came of my choice – don't group me with those who were forced in here."

_**We have no reason to give you freedom. We hold dominion here, and We alone. **_

"I have places to be," he said, "And little patience for you all. I have come to take a member; I am prepared to offer you something in return."

_**What can you offer to appease Us? We have no need of human comforts. What might you, Mage, give to Us when We do not desire material goods. **_

"You have long desired a human form again." With his words, all hostilities that the spirits of the veil gave to him vanished. The flaming hands circled around him, complimenting the motif of flames that had always been applied to Gethsemane and, as many believed, his father the Devil. "I am in a position to give you that if you give to me a single soul. It is an offer, I daresay, only I may give you."

_**Whom is it that you wish to have?**_

"I have been asked to retrieve the soul of Sirius Black, so that I may return him to life." That was what Gabrielle Edessa had asked of him, in compensation for taking Harry Potter so far away from all he loved and knew. He was not particularly happy with having to give the boy his godfather back, but had rather enjoyed thinking of various things to do to Black before letting Potter see him again.

The voices stopped screaming. Only silence was there; not even the fire crackled on the decaying hands and Gethsemane drew in no breath. His heart, to, had stopped beating. In the pause that stretched from the birth of a galaxy to its death, all of existence and noise had died. Then, the voices – each screaming in agony, in varying dialects of Hell and Purgatory and underworlds with tortures wore than that, each begging for mercy and redemption and peace – once again attempted to laugh.

_**That soul is**_**gone**_**. The trace of human in it is **_**destroyed**_**. He did not survive long. He arrived to Us defeated and ready for death. He did not survive long. Should you attempt to return him, Mage, you will be bringing forth a Thing fashioned by Lucifer and Beelzebub out of the misery of man. Sirius Black is dead. You, Mage, will be destroyed. **_

"Pity," said Gethsemane emptily. He lit Gabrielle's article, showing Black's mugshot and the details of his arrest, on fire, and watched it burn to white ash in the darkness. "No hope to make his soul into, say, a murderer or a madman? Something terrible but human; I do have a pledge to uphold to somebody in power I cannot offend again."

_**Mage, you would so violate Sirius Black and his legacy to avoid physical pain?**_

"The man is dead, isn't he? Better a killer than a corpse in my book."

_**In all Our power, We cannot undo what our master has done. Perhaps there is another you may desire to possess? **_

"Perhaps." Gethsemane polished his nails on his lapel. "All the people I would care to meet are unfortunately still living and fulfilling some destiny or another. However, I am curious; in your great wisdom, is there a chance you might be able to give to me the means to obtain some of the more . . . personalized . . . magicks."

_**We do not understand your request.**_

He rolled his eyes impatiently. "You are aware of people like, oh say, Aerith Gainsborough or Frédéric Chopin or the Anti-Spiral, whose magic has yet to be replicated in we Mages." The voices were silent so, quite impatiently, Gethsemane prattled off more and more examples that grew increasingly meaningless – obvious by his mention of Rincewind of the Discworld. "Could you not grant upon me a way to take their magic from them?"

The voices bristled._**All powerful though We **_**are**_**, We have no authority to disturb into what Destiny and the Mother of Heroes commands. We cannot allow you to steal magic from those who have a fate to fulfill. **_

"I am not asking to _steal_ the magic," he snapped back. The use of the word fate seemed to have struck something of a nerve and, if Harry had been there to see Gethsemane's reaction, he would have made a point to repeat the word as much as possible. "I mean to replicate it for myself. I have always found it distressing that the Mages of Fatali must limit themselves to generalized fields of magic without accessing what people actually utilize to save worlds and civilizations."

_**Then you shall be nothing less than a god and greater than some, Mage. We would have to consult with Her before We do so.**_

"You consult with_her_, and you can let the chances of getting a human body of your own. I am your only chance to leave this godforsaken abyss. Give me the means and I shall give you yours."

_**You are a black thing, Mage**_, the voices said together, the screaming less apparent, and a trace of the original entity who had been disturbed enough to fashion the archway from Nothing,_** You shall get your desire granted. Now, whom shall be the possessor of Our might? Shall it be you?**_

"Goodness no! You have done quite enough for me. A far better candidate is my apprentice –" He paused. If he were to give these spirits Harry's true name, they would forever (not a figurative forever either) hold sway over him, and the boy would become no better than the entities that wallowed around in Reed and Tuonela, composed of the broken strains of slumped and mingled magic. He decided upon an alias, though he lacked a noticeable creativity in names. "Henry Black is his name, an impatient boy if ever there was one; adventurously suicidal, though I suppose that you shall cure him of that."

_**You are a black thing, Mage. **_The voice attempted a laugh again. _**Come Samhaim by the calendar of the Green, We shall have a form once more, and you shall have what you have asked of Us.**_

"My only request is that you give him enough sentience so that I may be able to pass on my legacy," interjected Gethsemane, "Beyond that, I might actually prefer if you left him inhuman. It would teach him some respect." The spirits – though they lacked a form and function and existed only as the screaming memories of the dead – gave a nod and a bow to him.

_**You have Our gratitude, Mage. You have Our power. **_

"Very good," said Gethsemane, and stepped out of the darkness, proud of himself to be rid of Gabrielle's influence for good. He knew that the spirit had lied about Black (if the man was anything like his godson, he would have driven the veil itself mad), but had gotten a far better reward out of it then letting the mutt corrupt his apprentice with tales of England and their magic.

* * *

The peace in Rivage was, as all peace was in Harry's life, quite short-lived. No sooner had he silenced his laughter about the fact that Loony Luna had been right all along about her variety of creatures than a suave, heavily accented voice came about and attracted the whole of Alice's attention. Her face went through a bizarre process of going milk pale, then flushing furiously, and settling for a dumbstruck rosy look.

"Ah, what be this? Two young ladies out for a stroll through the town?"

Feeling justly insulted, Harry's eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared at the scent of pineapples and inhumanity (a sweetly sulfurous tang that lingered in the back of his throat). He looked upon the guitarist who had been serenading the group of girls by the fountain, who now had a wide and flirtatious smile upon his round face. His clothing was some of the oddest Harry had ever seen before; it seemed to have been composed of the scattered bits of cloth gathered from various points in history, strung beneath a large red scarf. The guitarist jumped, "Damn, you're an ugly girl!"

Unsure of how to properly respond, he settled upon, "And you smell like fruit. Who are you?"

The guitarist puffed out his chest and the great mass of clothes on his skinny body twitched. Upon closer inspection, however, the twitch was caused by the rather underdeveloped wings upon his back. He was so very much inhuman that it was startling; his ears were very much like a house elf's and there were sharp, curving horns at his temples that curved backwards like a ram's. Alice, though, made a strangled_squee_noise in the back of her throat and flushed an even deeper red.

"I am Rin of the Turncoat clan," proclaimed the guitarist proudly, slinging his instrument across his back and giving a sultry grin, "Richest family in all of Arcady. And now I see your pretty green eyes, sir-who-looks-an-awfully-lot-like-a-girl," (Harry's scowl deepened ever still and he stood up, unfortunately a little shorter than the guitarist), "That you're the Liege's apprentice, aint'cha?"

Harry nodded slowly, glaring at Rin who gave a playful glare and grin back. His teeth were sharp and pointed, disturbing him greatly. "You actually cost me a good sum of money," he said, poking Harry hard in the chest, "I was sure Adrian would never get off his ass and find an apprentice even after the King passed that law. I had a hundred gil riding on that fact."

"Sorry about that," he said, finally fed up, and giving a plaintive look at Alice.

Still with the same glassy look on her face, Alice stood up and bowed low, "H-hullo Mister Turncoat," she squeaked out, "P-p-puh-pleasure to see you!"

With an impatient snort, Harry left Alice still ogling after the guitarist and moved through the marketplace streets. His bad mood did not persist for very long; there was simply too much joy to be found in being ignored by the crowds of shopping people and the interest in the otherworldly beings who fit in amazingly well with the normalcy of the city. There was even a dog that stood behind a kiosk arguing over prices with an unhappy woman with more cat in her features (the woman threw Harry a particularly cold look as well, spitting out a guttural hiss).

Fingering the golden coins that the sale of his coat had earned him, Harry made his way inside a store with a large crooked sign out front that said_Fatali's Finest Wands, Est. _(Harry supposed that must have been a date of some sort). Gethsemane may have broken his wand, but he wasn't going to stay defenseless for much longer.

The store caught him off-guard and threw his perception off. It was far larger inside than the small little building should have allowed it; the moment he had entered it he was treated to a room, not the size of a cupboard as he would have suspected, but of one of Hogwarts' classrooms. There were shelves sandwiched between shelves and piles of books every which way, tripping him a little as he moved towards the back and the countertop. Music reverberated through the high ceiling; a beautiful melody of violins and a piano played, as Harry found out, by a minute orchestra of female fairies on top of the shelves. One was even singing in the most beautiful little voice he had ever heard, her gossamer wings catching the light ethereally.

In the back, the lady behind the counter was reading a book in Chinese and looked up intently when he came closer. Her eyes were a pale, powdery blue and skin was adorned with a myriad of symbols the same shade of blue "Hello Mister Potter," she said cheerfully, "How can I help you today?"

"You know my name?" he said before anything else, pushing back his overgrown fringe. The woman gave a sweet smile and a giggle, tapping the symbols on her cheek with one long finger.

"Elicoorian Runology, dear; wonderful science when it comes to spooking your customers. I'm surprised His Grace hasn't made mention of it yet. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I need a wand," he said, rather lamely, considering that the woman likely already knew about his intentions, "Mine sort of . . . snapped."

"Like a madman at Christmas," she said absently, and gave a whistle. The fairies that had been playing their instruments stopped and fluttered over to the woman, so that Harry could catch a better glimpse of them. They were so very different than the pixies that Lockhart had unleashed upon them in second year that he couldn't quite look away. Each was wearing a long gown of silk or velvet fashioned to look like snow and light, making them look like balls of warmth. Their small faces and tiny eyes looked at Harry with a look of utmost pity.

"Poor thing!" one of them cried, cupping her hands by her chest, "Never to know the beauty of moonlight again!"

"Forever cursed to look away from Mama Selene," agreed another, little tears dribbling down her face. The emotion was so genuine that Harry choked back a little himself, unable to feel any humiliation. They were just that sad.

The wand-shop owner asked the fairies in a kind voice to bring down a couple wand boxes and the minute creatures, still sobbing a little. "How do you like Rivage thus far?" she asked him in small talk and Harry shrugged, his throat still a bit constricted by the lingering effect of the fairies' sorrow. "I suppose you still are adjusting to the switch from your world to the Green. Where do you come from?"

"England," he said, rethought for a moment, "Uh, Earth, I guess, unless you have a different name for it here."

"No, it's Earth, but which one?" The question could not have thrown him more off guard. His eyes were caught in the odd process of narrowing, widening, and trying to arch their eyebrows all at the same time and succeeding in only straining them.

"Which one? Isn't there only _one_?" The woman giggled a little again.

"Not anymore there isn't. I'm even more surprised His Grace hasn't told you about this, considering you're an Englishman. It's a rather beautiful story. The old Liege of Elysion – Lady Nachtmusik's father – met and fell in love with a woman from England and spirited her off to the Green to be married during a comet shower. She loved him so much but loved her own country almost as much. So the Liege buried himself into creationism magic and made for her copies of Earth and England for every year that they were married, with magic and people and places that differed from one to another, so she could always go to a world with new and different things, but still with enough of her homeland in it for her to love it as much as her husband loved her."

It seemed to be a gentle love story indeed, but one that a teenage boy would find little interest in, especially one such as Harry who still was swallowing back distaste at leaving behind Ginny. What he got out of the tale was an unpleasant taste in his mouth; Harry's own world and the reality he had lived in might very well have been some sort of anniversary present to a spoiled wife.

The woman looked him over. "Was there a wandmaker in your England of any renown? I should be able to tell by that."

"Yeah; Ollivander's?"

She smiled. "That's Ministry England then; Osmond did always make the best wands. It's a shame that yours got snapped, I would have been thrilled to examine it."

"Could you fix it if I brought it in?" Her smile and her smell told him no before her mouth did.

The fairies came back with boxes of wands that were twice or even three times as tall as them. They placed them down with gentleness on the countertop before returning to their musical instruments atop the shelves, and the song they played was mournful and beautiful and made Harry think of a funeral march befitting a lament for an angel. The woman told him that the song was called the Phantom Nocturne, composed for a queen's wedding but played at her funeral instead.

She opened a cedar box that was lined with velvet, and inside was very much not a wand. It was a staff broken into three pieces that would have attached together, each glowing with their own luminescence, the topmost part a large orb of multi-colored light that, when Harry looked into it, showed the picture of him at a wedding, holding the hand of woman whose hair and face were obscured by a blue veil. His heart sank a little and the woman put the box away.

The next box was a wand as Harry was used to, but white like bone with an embellished silver handle. The woman screwed up her face and the symbols on her cheeks seemed to glow a little bright. "Whale bone and vampire hair, eleven inches."

Before he could even touch it, a surge of unpleasantness welled up inside of him and his mind shouted a loud, forceful _**No**_He snatched his hand back, wondering what had caused such a rejection. (This writer interjects that, as Harry told the portion of his tale to Ron and Hermione, he explained that it was his own magic telling him clearly what it would not channel itself through, and a werewolf's natural aversion to a vampire that pulled his hand back).

He went through several more wands like this, each with increasingly more bizarre materials. There was even one made of, as the woman would say, "Of Lia de Beaumont's mercury-blood and a Poet's femur, twelve inches" that made bile well up in his throat. Whilst Harry had grown more impatient with each passing offering, the woman seemed to grow no less impatient and, if anything, excited. (She was greatly similar to Ollivander in that respect, as many Englishmen who had come to the Green would remark).

There was little light coming in from the windows now, and a dusky orange filling up the sky. The people had begun to empty the streets of Rivage, shops and stands shutting down, leaving behind a peaceful scene. Harry wondered absently what had become of Alice and if that guitarist had done anything to her, but his attention was focused more on the shop owner.

She had placed one last box on the counter and told him, very kindly, "If this won't take you, than I cannot help you, Mister Potter."

Inside was a wand so red that it looked as if it had soaked in paint or, if one would look on the macabre side, blood (though it was much redder than that). It was thin and crystalline and shimmered against the black velvet inside, little bits of liquid flickering inside of it. Harry was able to pick this one up, shocked at the feel of the handle – like touching bird feathers, almost. He nearly leapt out of his skin when an eye opened up inside the liquid, looking at him with a slit pupil and yellow iris.

It shut soon after, as though in sleep.

"Thirteen inches exactly, made of the Eon's heart and a Queen's sin." She pushed the box into Harry's hands and smiled serenely at him. "May you serve it well, My Liege." She bowed long and low.

Unsure of what to do and what she had meant, exactly, by the contents of the wand, he managed to say, "How much will this cost?"

All the woman did was smile more, and tell him to send her regards to Gethsemane. As Harry walked out of the wand shop, the fairies up in their miniature orchestra called out to him.

"Farewell! Farewell, you poor creature! May Mama Selene and Papa Endymion welcome you into their arms one day! Have hope, My Liege, have hope, and trust not the shadows!"

Harry was quite glad to be out of the shop after it all, and at quite an ill ease at the wand that had picked him. When he'd been eleven and Mr. Ollivander had told that to him, he'd believed it, desperate for something to accept him and chose him over his cousin. When the woman had said it now, he felt strangely subjugated to the red little thing, and the memory of its yellow eye unsettled his stomach.

However, he had a wand now, and Gethsemane didn't know that. The next time that the man attempted to do something to him, he had a way of defending himself. The thought put a strange smile on Harry's face, and he put the wand and its box into the deep pocket of his pants.

The problem remained for him now that he had no map of getting back to the chateau. Alice had likely gone off by now, tired of waiting for him, and there was something about walking back the fifteen miles in the dark that made his hair stand on end in a very instinctual manner. Yet, as Harry meandered around the now empty streets of Rivage, glad at the quiet and the remaining scents of happiness and roasting meat, he heard guitar music wafting across the air alongside of a breeze.

The source of the music was none other than Rin Turncoat, still sitting on the fountain side, playing and laughing while Alice was giggling at the jokes he would crack. Her face was still flushed with embarrassment and she was doing her very best to hide her teeth by pressing her hand up against her mouth, but she was certainly more relaxed.

At a distance, Harry watched and heard Rin strum the instrument with a master's ease, and felt a bizarre pang of jealousy and misery.

This writer must interject, as she often does, with a more proper explanation. Harry was not jealous that the guitarist was stealing away Alice – in fact, he thought of her as more a female version of Neville Longbottom than anything of physical attractiveness – and really didn't care about Rin enough to spare him any slight bit of emotional thought.

It was instead that image that rotted his heart. The picture of a girl he knew being taken away by somebody else because he hadn't been there. He thought of Ginny, now, who was likely going to move past Harry and marry another wizard like Dean Thomas or Michael Corner, or somebody who would be there to protect her during the war while he was off in a marketplace having a right old time, and even engaged to another woman against his will.

He felt miserable and stood there for quite some time, watching – not Rin and Alice – but Ginny and another, more suave, handsomer wizard than him wooing her with his guitar, cracking jokes with her, while she tried to hide her crocked teeth and waved at him to come over and join them –

"Harry! Harry, oh there you are!"

Harry blinked and forced a smile on his face as he walked towards them. Rin stopped playing the guitar and grinned impishly at him, his own dark hair brushed back off of his face while Harry's hid the top part of his vision.

"You need a haircut," he said and tucked some of his hair behind his long ear and horn.

"I would like one very much," snapped back Harry.

"Do you always have such a wonderful disposition, or is it just that time of the month for you?"

Very tempted to punch Rin in the jaw, Alice intervened immediately and moved towards Harry, placing a nervous hand on his clenched fist. "So, are you ready to head back? I'd . . . I'd, uh, imagine that Sire Sambuca will have finally arrived back with your things from England already."

"Ohh, where you going?" asked Rin excitedly, crouched on the edge of the fountain, and Harry fought back the childish temptation to push him into the water, "Someplace for nancy boy to comb his hair and get ready for the ball?"

"_Shut it_," snarled Harry low and Rin, excitedly, leapt from his perch and over Harry's head. Alice was sandwiched between the two of them, looking fearful with her great silvery eyes widening. She protested vainly for the both to calm down.

"You sound like a dog hit on the nose with some paper," said the guitarist, standing bravely and unafraid with his hands in the pocket of his patched coat, "A great shaggy _mutt_with a rich snarky master, right? Betcha come from one of them old fashion English families to, with their cricket and their tea and their . . . other teas."

"Better than some elf that plays guitar on the streets, I'd imagine," Harry snapped back with coldness uncharacteristic of himself, teeth bared. Rin seemed to be enjoying the fight whereas Harry was doing his best not to escalate it into a physical, or magical, one.

Rin moved a little closer, their small difference in height painfully obvious by now, though Harry was glaring far harder and more threatening (as this writer may or may not have mentioned previously, his face was much obscured by hair, and he looked quite like a madman with his uncombed mess). "Don't think I don't know what _you_are, princess," he said, still playfully, but with the edge of a threat and blackmail, "You have the stink of a wolf all over you. Pissed off Adrian already, have you? Told your girlfriend there yet that you could gobble her up next week if she so much as looks at a red hood?"

He punched Rin in the jaw.

It felt excellent just to do that and send the guitarist off his feet for a moment, though Rin didn't fall flat and merely took a step or two backwards. Alice gave a little shout of horror and, of all things, Rin took a hold of his guitar by the neck and smashed it against Harry's side.

That sent him colliding down onto the ground, landing with a bit of a snap on his leg, all the wind knocked out of him. Gasping and struggling back to his feet, face burning and adrenaline ready to make his second punch break something in his opponent, he found that Rin was doing nothing but looking over him with a grin up on his face, one that looked like Ron's.

"Guess I win this round, then!" he said, and extended a hand to help Harry up. Ignoring that, Harry got back up to his feet, and shook his hair out of his face.

"What the bloody hell does _that_mean?"

"Well, I knocked you down – I won," Rin said absently, though Alice was sharing the same look of surprise and horror that was on Harry's face. "I never win any of these games with my brothers or sisters, so I'm glad I can at least beat _you_up." His words were just so very bizarre that Harry thought that maybe the blow had done more than knock the wind out of him and twist his wrist. He stared for the longest time, Rin's smell of happiness eating away at Harry's rage.

"A_game_?"

"Well yeah, didn't you play games with your siblings?" The look on Harry's face was enough of an answer. "Then there you have it! You're a pansy because you didn't have siblings to beat guts into you! And for winning," he tapped his chin with a clawed finger and slid his dented guitar back into its strap on his shoulder, "I think I deserve a meal made by Samedi's fine chef. Well then Miss. Alice, if you'll lead the way . . .?"

Harry wouldn't let him get off that easy. His scowl sliding back up onto his face and his eyes narrowed behind his off-center pince-nez. "You smashed a _guitar_into my side for _what_reason again?"

"A number of reasons," came back the reply, "Some of them dark and unpleasant, but mostly because you look like a ball of stress with too much hair. You need a friend to help cheer you up and make you laugh and all that crap! Well then Alice, will you lead the way?"

Although at the time Harry, scowling, nursing his injured wrist like a hurt dog, and exchanging bizarre and disgruntled looks with a pale-faced Alice, was sure he would curse Rin into a thousand splendid pieces the second he turned his face around again, it was a rather different story as Harry explained it to Ron and Hermione.

He chuckled a little as he relayed the events, a wide and stupid grin on his face (nearly and eerily identical to the one that had adorned Sirius's face when telling stories of the Marauders' glory days). He seemed rather unaware of the hurt look on his friends' faces. It sounded, to both Ron and Hermione, that Harry had replaced them with Rin and Alice.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are the property of JK Rowling and Warner Bros. I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

Aerith Gainsborough is from Final Fantasy VII, property of Square-Enix, not me.

Frédéric Chopin belongs to, well, himself, but the magical one belongs to the game Eternal Sonata and tri-Crescendo, not me.

The Anti-Spiral are from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann made by Gainax, and I do not own it

[_The previous comment may have contained SPOILERS_

Rincewind is, obviously, from Discoworld, written by Terry Prachett

Runology is from Star Ocean III by tri-Ace, not owned by me.

Lia de Beaumont and the Poets are from Production I.G., which I also do not own.

[**Author's Note**

"So the Bipolar King finally shows his head!"

– My friend and lazy beta-reader Jess on Rin

Yeah, so there you have it. Another chapter. Well, I hope you enjoy it, because now I have only a day to write up an Anatomy lab. Yeah. Enjoy it. It's your Halloween gift. Don't ask for candy, alright, because candy is a _myth_, like Santa Claus.

Yeah, I went there.

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	9. Geschichte

**--Patina--**

Kapitel Neun

Geschichte

* * *

[**Black Balloon**

You know the lies they always told you  
And the love you never knew  
What's the things they never showed you  
That swallowed the light from the sun

[**Goo-Goo Dolls**

* * *

Rin Turncoat was the epitome of a terrible houseguest. He was loud and obnoxious and stole things that weren't nailed down, made passes as Mariette and her sisters as they walked past (making particularly audible comments about the shortness of their uniform skirts), and talked about unpleasant and confusing things with his mouth full of food. He did everything but smell like terrible fish, and made Olethea teeter on her heels and chew her nails, unable to do anything because – as it would turn out – Rin's mother was someone of great importance and rank.

He did absolutely everything to ruin the order of Gethsemane's carefully constructed sea-side home, and Harry was enjoying every minute of the chaos. Or rather, he would have enjoyed it more if Gethsemane had been there to see the budding chaos and if the full moon was not rapidly approaching. There was less than three days now, and at nighttime it was the violet-blue moon that was round and nearly complete.

It had dawned upon him, sickeningly, that with two moons there would be two transformations a month. And, with the violet moon so nearly complete and his health nearly gone, he wondered if there would be a time he'd ever feel healthy again.

"You look like crap," Rin remarked tactlessly to him at one point, and it was all Alice could do to keep from agreeing outright. That was not to say that he was without point. Harry's skin was waxy and pale – he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a while, his mind keep replaying Professor Lupin's agonizing transformation in third year – and his eyes were sunken. Food had begun to taste too strongly, noises around so much louder and the smells even more so. Even the scent of pollen and flowers all around Alice were threatening to bring his breakfast up.

"Thanks," he said sullenly, still not on particularly good terms with the demonic guitarist.

"Not a problem," Rin said with a grin, biting deep into an oddly crunchy fruit that seemed to glow under the right light.

He was spared further conversation – though Rin attempted to pursue it, yelling loudly after him and missing the furious looks that one of the gardeners tossed him – by the reminder that Olethea needed him in the library.

The room had become a sort of personal hell. Each of the Magistrate's lessons began the same way; Olethea would curtsy and inflict upon him her utmost gratitude for allowing her to be his teacher, even though Harry had had no say in the matter. Then she'd pull books down from the shelves, each with a flick of her wrist in some sort of wandless magic that intrigued him – it was essentially the same as a Summoning Charm – and set them before him, piled by size in neat little stacks, and instruct him on which to read.

As he walked into the library now, the dust and the parchment pages choking Harry's senses, he saw Olethea exactly where she was before every lesson. She was sitting at a small table with an array of papers before her, ordered exactly how Hermione had done them; in neurotically clean piles.

Although she had never made him privy to the information in the pages, he had caught sight of them before she slid them back into her leather bag. They were letters addressed to people named Randolph Ark and Locke Nachtmusik (odd names, to be quite frank) and they were about him. Beyond that, Harry never found out more.

"It has come to my attention, Sir Apprentice, that I have been neglectful in my duties towards you," she began today in her stiff voice, though it sounded teary, "I have failed to advise you in the most fundamental of matters involved in the running of our world, and for that I implore your forgiveness." She bowed her head low and mournfully. Harry bit back a snort of impatient laughter.

"That's, er, alright. What is it that you haven't mentioned?"

She stood up and pushed in her chair neatly, her clothing covered in dust but as immaculate as ever. Her fingers closed tightly around the tops of the chair. "There is to be a celebration concerning the holiday of Fiacre in four days held in the capital of Nueva Fortunada. His Grace is to use this holiday to formally announce you as his apprentice to the courts and the other Master Mages."

Harry's stomach churned unpleasantly, only adding to the unpleasant lethargy he'd been enduring quietly. In three days there was to be the full moon, which meant he'd be dragged off to some other city while recovering from his first transformation – that very thought made the world crumble a little beneath him. He'd gotten used to the smells and the hearing, to degrees (just not when Rin would scream right behind him out of the blue), but the actual transformation . . .

He shifted his attention. "Yeah, and?"

"Begging your pardon for my harsh word choice, Sir Apprentice, but I have left you cruelly ignorant of the functioning of our government. I can only hope that you could forgive me for my oversights." She bent her head, dramatically apologetic.

Impatient now, he asked, "So, what exactly would I need to know?" Harry was really only asking to keep his mind off of what he'd become in three days; that terrible, snarling –

Olethea sat down, sitting as though there were a ruler strapped to her back, and looked at him indirectly. "Are you familiar with how a monarchy works, Sir Apprentice?"

"Well, I _am_English –" He regretted his word choice almost immediately by the look on Olethea's face.

"Oh, begging your deepest pardon, Sir Apprentice! In my haste I made a grievous error –"

"It's_alright_," he said quickly, her embarrassment tasting like rank meat in the back of his throat, "Please, continue."

"Thank you for your forgiveness," she said, inclining her head, "Our government is a monarchy headed, as of the modern day, by His Glorious Majesty Raymond XI of the Turin dynasty. He is married as of thirty years previous to Her Highness, Queen Gabrielle I. By his first three wives, he has twenty-two children, among them your fiancée, the Lady of Mag-Upon-Mell." (He still turned an amusing shade of green at the thought of marrying Isabel, though this writer is sure all her readers understand why).

"The Court of His Glorious Majesty consists of the Cardinal Generals, the four who lead the army, and of course, the Master Mages and their apprentices, of which you shall find your own glorious company, Sir Apprentice." She inclined her head.

Harry's attention fluttered in and out of listening. His gaze traveled all around at the bookshelves, settling down on the occasional tome that was particularly vibrant against the drabness of the library. Never bookish – that was Hermione's department of expertise – he found himself yearning to get his hands on something just to focus his attention on something that wasn't Olethea or the full moon.

For the moment, he had to listen.

". . . as of the modern day, there are seven Master Mages who, at points, all controlled one fief in the Glorious Kingdom of Turin-Ishtar. As of the passage of Article Ninety-Two, Section Twenty . . ."

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose, never thinking that he'd be missing his round glasses as much as he was now. He hadn't thought that he'd be missing a lot of things that he was; Slytherins, Potions classes (both with Slughorn _and_Snape), the Dursleys, even _The Prophet_.

". . . likewise, there are dignitaries from several of the more advanced worlds such as Cristobel, Dæmon England, and, of course, the House constructed by the Architect . . ."

Depression settling onto his shoulders like his ill-health, Harry again thought of Ron and Hermione and did his very best to fight back images of Ginny. Were they searching for him? Was he presumed dead and the Death Eaters responsible? Was Voldemort, now, torturing someone to death for information they didn't know?

Harry traced his scar absently, the familiar roughness somehow a blessing, a connection to an existence that was leaving him with each day. Even if he would just feel _some_pain in it, just to know that he wasn't completely cut off from his world would be consolation enough for him to move on.

"Am I being understandable, Sir Apprentice?"

Harry jumped a little and looked at her, his hair snagging in the engravings on the chair. "What? Oh, yeah – absolutely."

Olethea gave a cut nod to him. "Now then, as per the request of His Grace, I am to administer to you a slight examination of the skills you have thus acquired. He has asked that you complete such a review at intervals so that His Grace may monitor the extent of your education and correct what he sees as inadequacies."

By an instinct shared by most students, Harry – who had not paid the slightest bit of attention in the lessons so far – paled a little bit. He didn't really give a damn about the actual grade if there was to be one (he never had, really, which had been McGonagall's greatest bane with him). What really made his skin crawl and his stomach twist into tighter knots was what fate would befall him from Gethsemane's hand.

After all, the man had made Harry a werewolf for a snarky comment. What would he do if Harry was proven to be wasting his time?

Olethea slid several sheets of parchment and a quill towards him. "I have been asked to inform you by His Grace, Sir Apprentice," she said, "That spelling, penmanship, and thoroughness count towards the grade."

_Bloody hell_.

He stared at it, and damned the fact that the Green's version of a lawyer had written it.

_Translate the following scripture into Old Nordic and explain your usage of each rune in the context that you used it. Recall that, the follow passages being scripture taken from the Score of Auldrant, one must exercise care into not using runes that would be seen as offensive, blasphemous, or otherwise detrimental towards the religion as a whole._

* * *

Hermione could not help it. She gave a bit of a giggle. Harry fixed her with a glare that reminded her so refreshingly like his old self that she laughed a little harder.

"You_still_don't pay any attention towards your schoolwork?"

He grinned a little bit. "Finally had to, after a bit. Every point off of a perfect, I'd spent an hour stuck in a painting." He leaned in onto his fingers, still wrapped around the hilt of the sword. "Not interesting paintings either. Imagine being stuck in the same room as**Trelawney** for three days, only she _insists_on explaining clock-smithing. You'd come out of it trying for top marks to, I'd imagine."

* * *

By the end of the exam, Harry felt like he has just done a week's worth of Divination homework. He had attempted, best as he could, to come up with the most nonsensical gibberish that one could possibly pen down, and had discovered that, when one was not trying hard at all, Nordic runes blended in with Chinese characters quickly. He even gave a grin when Olethea took it, looking rather perplexed at what he had put down.

"Thank you for your attention, Sir Apprentice," she said, and inclined her head again. He attempted to look over her shoulder and see what letter she was working on, but beyond a grandiose introduction he caught nothing else. "If I may be as so bold as to make a suggestion, Sir Apprentice, I would suggest that you take some time to rest."

The thought of sleep sounded wonderful to his ears, which rang slightly with the pitch of Olethea's voice, and he nodded a little. His back gave a terrible crack when he stood up and his legs felt like lead when he tried to walk.

If Professor Lupin felt like this during every full moon, than he gave the man credit for even surviving through life as he had.

His feet leading the rest of him to the bedroom without any conscious effort on his behalf, Harry found himself thinking of something rather odd. Olethea had mentioned that there were _other_apprentices to other Master Mages. So, were they like him, then; shoved into a role that they wouldn't have ever wanted to be in? Maybe some were even worse off than him – they might have had families that missed them, parents whose touch they would never feel.

And Sambuca had said that most apprentices were about six when they were brought to the Green . . . he couldn't comprehend how that must feel. When he was six, he would have been ecstatic to leave the Dursleys if there was a family on the other end. But if it had been Gethsemane waiting to take him and inflict the same teachings, he might have ended up insane.

His shoulders sank a little, and Harry gave a weary sigh as he pushed open the door of his bedroom. He made sure to lock it afterwards; Rin had barged in during the middle of the night once swinging a bottle of bourbon like a club.

The room had gotten progressively more roomy over the weeks with a distinctly Harry Potter touch to it. Things were thrown around haphazardly and the desk was covered in balls of paper and scribbled letters to people who would likely never receive them. Pathetic though it may have seemed to a number of people, Harry had written letters to Ron and Hermione explaining his situation, thinking that he'd somehow find a way to send them to his friends.

True to Wynn's word, as well, a rather large amount of people had provided him with welcoming gifts to the Green, though Harry never met any of them. They were mostly powerful people from other worlds who couldn't travel to the Green on their own, so instead passed their gifts and warm regards onto Wynn Sambuca, who in turn gave them to Harry.

Gerade the cat was sleeping on the bed, purring loudly with his white stomach revealed to the ceiling. He meowed loudly when Harry entered in and Harry, growing fond of the creature, scratched him behind his ears. A small amount of marble-like objects were clustered around the cat and Harry collected them up in the palm of his hand. Most of them were green with the occasional purple, and each glowed with a strange luminescence of their own.

Wynn had said they were called Materia, source of magic on a certain world where few people could do it naturally. Harry rolled one in between his fingers, noticing how strangely the light from the windows affected it, and placed them all back into the box that Gerade had knocked them out of.

The bookshelves were now partially filled, though with surprisingly few books. Most of them had come from his Hogwarts school trunk, which had arrived the day before. Instead, much of the space was taken up by framed photographs – of everything from his parents in the autumn, laughing and holding each other tightly, to him, Ron, Hermione, and Sirius the one Christmas they had spent together in Grimmauld Place.

Harry looked at the picture, homesickness welling up inside of him. Sirius, swinging a bottle of Butterbeer with an arm wrapped around Harry's neck, gave a jovial grin at Remus, who had been the one with the camera. Ron's face was slightly screwed up, debating mentally if he should try and hold Hermione's hand, and there was an actual smile on Harry's face.

He gave a heavier sigh, placed the box of Materia back on its shelf beside his Sneakoscope, and took down a book on Alchemy sent by someone called Dante (Wynn had had a funny expression on his face when he had given Harry the book). With Gerade curling around Harry's legs on the bed, he began reading, glad to have something to take his mind off of the upcoming days.

But, as most people do when attempting to read on a sleepy mind, Harry fell asleep in an uncomfortable position, snoring rather loudly.

_He dreamed of a cathedral bathed in golden moonlight, where a choir with the voices of angels and goddesses screamed up towards the firmament. There were white marble and gilded statues in alcoves deeper than the deepest chasm, and a long, pale, smirking figure with scarlet eyes moving up a staircase, laughing coldly._

_And there was blood on the ground and a sobbing body_.

"_Happy now, Potter?" laughed a voice so familiar and yet strange. It stank of vile happiness and psychosis, just as the pale figure on the steps stank of blood._

Harry gave a hoarse cry in his sleep, but did not wake up.

* * *

There was shouting downstairs in the kitchen that interrupted Harry's story again. It made him jump when Mad-Eye Moody's yelling disturbed the dust in the bedroom, his fingers closing tight around the sword due to protective instinct. Hermione twirled her wand between her fingers hesitantly, chewing her lip, debating whether or not to investigate the source of commotion.

Ron, taking a far more direct approach, opened the door and strode out onto the landing.

"Alastor, I _know_that is Harry and what he says – however unbelievable – is true!" wafted up Professor Lupin's voice, forceful but not shouting, and echoing up through the cavernous atrium of the house.

Harry's features darkened and he shut his eyes with a sigh. He seemed to have been dreading this particular conversation. Hermione chewed her lip harder, not knowing what to exactly do and despising herself for being caught in that moment of ignorance.

Moody gave a bark of sardonic laughter that was mixed with a howl of fury. "Just how do you know that, boy? Did you ask him about his Patronous, the Gryffindor password, his parents or Sirius? Did you, or did you just let him waltz perfectly content into Grimmauld Place?"

"He's as good as my godson now!" said Lupin, his voice a little louder. Downstairs in the kitchen, Tonks moved closer to him in a wifely gesture, "I should hope that after four years I would know him quite well!"

"Calm down the both of you!" bellowed Molly Weasley, ever the peacemaker (with her children she needed to be). "Alastor, we all believe that that – that _he_," she corrected herself with a little choke, "Is Harry!"

"And I suppose you've all forgotten Confundus Charms? Bring him down and let him taste some Veritaserum if you're so convinced!"

"Should you go down there?" Hermione finally asked Harry, who had absorbed the arguments with stoicism. His cracked fingers were white and wrapped around the sword.

He opened an eye to look at Hermione, and for a moment the look chilled her. "Why?" he asked curiously, "What good would it accomplish if I went down there and had Veritaserum shoved down my throat by a Potions Master I don't know and don't trust?" The tone of his words shook Hermione a little bit, and she was hesitant to move closer towards him.

"Moody doesn't trust you," she said with a swallow, still twirling her wand as a way of a bad nervous tick, "And if he doesn't, he's going to make sure that other Aurors don't, and we really need everyone united, you know that."

"Do_you_trust me?" he asked her.

Hermione did not know what to say. There were few times that she had ever been thrust into such a situation where she could not summon the answer from books and she was as sailors were when tossed out into a stormy sea.

She both knew that this man was her dear friend, who had saved her from trolls and Basilisks and Death Eaters, who had been there beside her when she had fought with Ron, who had stupidly sat by at the Yule Ball with teenage sulkiness as Cho danced with Cedric. She trusted her friend with her life, and had done so countless times.

Yet, to, this was a stranger; a tall, emaciated man in a three-piece suit, holding a sword, and talking as if his life depended on his tale. He was a werewolf wearing an illegal Glamour Charm, scarred like an Auror, wary of the world and weary of its troubles. And Hermione knew that strangers were the last to trust.

Harry shut his eye again and waited for Hermione's uneasy response, which pained her greatly, this writer remarks in confidence to her readers.

"Yes I do."

"Then what does it matter if the Aurors don't trust me?" He stood up and slid the sword back into its scabbard, the movements polished with years of practice. "You trust me, Professor Lupin and Mrs. Weasley trust me, and I'm sure Ron trusts me." He fixed his pince-nez and winced as he touched the ugly magical burn on his cheeks. "The Aurors just need to know that they can't trust Voldemort and must fight him. I don't see any reason why I need to be considered in their equations."

The rationality struck Hermione dumb for a moment, and she shut her mouth.

Harry tapped his burn again with a tentative finger and gave a bit of a wince. He still pushed two fingers onto the blister and said, in a voice both clear and mumbling, "_Curaga._"

With a greenish light and a noise akin to the sound of bells (as strange as the description may have been), the burn was gone from his face – alongside of every other marring feature on his face. Without the scars, the resemblance between Harry and James Potter was heightened to such a degree it was much like looking at a memory.

(There were, of course, several noticeable differences – the hair, eyes, and glasses for one, but let not technical information ruin the eeriness of the resemblance).

"How on _earth –_?"

The predictable question went unfinished by Harry's premature response. He held up his right hand, still wrapped in bloodied bandages, and removed them. Sunken into his skin in a pattern were three marble-sized spheres, two green and one indigo.

"Materia," he said, avoiding Hermione's look of horror, "It doesn't hurt as much as it looks, don't worry . . ."

"How can you _do that _to yourself?" she asked him, weakly. Hermione grabbed his hand and, perhaps to prove themselves real in her mind, traced them with her fingers. The very touch of the marble-esque items were otherworldly, just as the Time Turner had felt when she first laid her hands on it four years ago. "How can you . . . this is what, what Voldemort does, Harry."

He looked at her quizzically and – unintentionally, of course, this writer must remind readers – Hermione felt as though someone was looking down upon her. She let go of his hand and gave an accusatory look at his face. "Voldemort – he changes his body for more power, that's why – that's why he looks like that! Is that what you've done to yourself? With, with these _Materia_and the symbol on your other hand?"

"No."

He rubbed his thumb over the Materia and looked directly at her. "I'm_not like that_," he said sternly, "And I never _was_. For my eighteenth birthday," he held his hand in front of her and there was a hard, painful look in his eyes that she had never really seen before. "Gethsemane put them there. I didn't have a choice. I didn't go hunting for immortality like Voldemort – I'm not_like_Gethsemane who does anything for more power. I'm . . . just me."

There was a disturbing quiet that fluttered throughout the room. Hermione looked away, twirling her wand still. Ron busied himself with something on the landing, having heard all of the conversation and not wanting to sit through the awkwardness of the situation.

"We need to get out of this house!" wafted up Moody's roaring from the kitchen, "Snape _knows_we're here; I've been telling you blundering fools for _weeks now_! How is it that all of you are content to sit in the middle of a war zone, having _tea_and_firewhiskey_as if nothing's wrong!"

"Where are we supposed to go Alastor; this is as safe as any other place in the country!"

"Someplace where there isn't _some bloody stranger talking to your children!_"

"Maybe you should get some sleep," Harry offered to Hermione, his fingers still wrapped around the hilt of his sword, "It's late, and you look tired."

"But – Harry, I'm –"

"It's alright," he said with a heavy sigh that sank his shoulders nearly down to his chest, "It's alright, Hermione. Just – don't lie again."

She left without another word, feeling terrible but somehow glad to be out of the room. She gave a sigh that was interrupted instantly when the door shut behind her, and the lock clicked shut.

"Are you alright?" Ron asked her bluntly when he saw her expression – a strange configuration of emotions that this writer is unable to properly explain away in words.

"Do I _look_alright?" snapped Hermione, turning around and marching up towards her room, leaving Ron rather gob-smacked and angry on the landing. He rapped his knuckles on the banister impatiently and listened to Moody and Lupin's escalating argument downstairs in the kitchen.

". . . Calm down."

"She doesn't have any right to talk to you like that!"

"It's_alright_."

"_No_– we should never have left Fatali!"

It was a female voice arguing with Harry, or something startling close to a female voice. It was ghastly, dark, and cool, like steel nails on a chalkboard, and the anger in it only heightened the terribleness of the speech.

"No!" came Harry's cry, panicking nearly. His voice reclaimed the hysterical quality it had had on the night he had arrived back at Grimmauld Place, "No – no, we can't go back! I'm NOT! It's, it's safer here, they said, Professor Lupin said it's _safer here_!"

"It's alright; I'm sorry sir."

Ron followed Hermione up the steps, tripping on the carpet in his haste to get away from the bedroom door.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are the property of JK Rowling and Warner Bros. I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

Materia is the property of Square-Enix, not me

The world of Cristobel is actually my property too

_[grins_

It's the setting for my novel

Dæmon England is my name for the version of England in His Dark Materials, property of Phillip Pullman, not me

The House as constructed by the Architect is from Keys to the Kingdom by Garth Nix, not me

_[That is this writer's favorite book series after Harry Potter_

Dante and the alchemy mentioned thus far are from Fullmetal Alchemist, owned by Hiromu Arakawa and Square-Enix, not me

[**Author's Note**

At this rate, it seems like I'm only writing chapters as holiday presents. Well, Happy American Thanksgiving, and Happy Belated Canadian Thanksgiving

This chapter is brought to you by me getting bronchitis and thus playing Final Fantasy VII for the last five days.

Goddamn. You. Chocobo. Racing.

. . . this chapter is such obvious filler I should be ashamed.

[**Statistics**

[_Pages_ 11

[_Paragraphs_ 119

[_Lines_ 444

[_Words_ 4,414

[_Characters_ 24,875

[_Font_ Times New Roman

[_Font Size_ 12


	10. Werwolf

--**Patina**--

Kapitel Zehn

Werwolf

* * *

[**Animal I Have Become**

Somebody help me through this nightmare  
I can't control myself  
Somebody wake me from this nightmare  
I can't escape this hell

[**Three Day's Grace**

* * *

It was during the period of the late night that was rightly the early morning that Remus Lupin, having spent several hours arguing with a paranoid man and several minutes of attempting fruitless sleep due to a variety of reasons that need not be discussed, stirred inside the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Unskilled at household spells as he was and fond of the way his Muggle-born mother had made tea, the man busied himself with filling up a tea kettle manually, his mind abuzz with thought and sleepiness.

He questioned whether or not Moody had had a point when it came down to Harry. Yes, Remus was well-aware of the fact that the Order should have left Grimmauld Place months ago when Dumbledore died and Snape became able to reveal the location to Voldemort. But, somehow that information would not quite sink in with the Order members. They still all flocked to Grimmauld Place, decrepit and terrible though it might have been. There was even talk of repeating the Fidelius Charm with, say, Minerva as the Secret Keeper, but there was little information on what would happen if the same charm were to be cast . . .

But on the topic of Harry, Remus remained by his words without faltering. He knew that the long-haired man was Harry and that his story was true, no matter how . . . unorthodox it might have been.

"Making tea?"

Remus jumped up a little, unused to people taking him by surprise. He turned a little, nursing the spot on his hand where boiling water had splashed onto it, and saw Harry standing there. Remus hadn't seen the boy (well, man, but Remus's thoughts still thought of Harry Potter as a teenager) in a few days, but it had done him good. His face had healed up, and he'd managed to comb back the tangle of black hair into a long, shiny tail.

He looked far too much like James Potter. Old Prongs had been about twenty when he'd died, and the resemblance had become even more pronounced as Harry had aged. Well, this writer remarks with a far-off look, except for the expression on his face. It was doubtful that James had ever looked so morose and weary.

"Yeah," Remus said, setting the kettle back down onto the stove, "Want some?"

"Yeah," Harry said absently, taking a seat at the table. He'd taken off his coat and jacket, so that he was dressed in a white shirt and waistcoat that Remus never would have thought Harry would tolerate wearing. "Tea sounds good." He held his head in his hands and drummed his crooked fingers against his temples.

There was a quiet for a while, neither seemingly knowing what to say. There were noises upstairs, some suggesting that Ron and Hermione were again in a row or that Tonks had knocked over something in hers and Remus's room upstairs. Finally, while stirring honey into his tea, Remus asked, "You're not hungry, are you? Molly says you haven't been down to eat when everybody else does."

It was a poor conversation starter at best, but one none the less.

"I'm alright with just the tea. Professor –"

"Remus," the older man corrected, setting down a cup in front of Harry alongside the sugar bowl (as predicted, Harry began filling his cup with spoonfuls of it). "I don't really see a reason for titles anymore."

"Consider it a term of endearment then," Harry said, smiling a little bit but it did not last particularly long. "When is the next full moon?"

Remus's fingers stiffened around the tea cup and curled a little tighter. "A little over a week. You're alright."

"It's not _me_I worry about," Harry said, drawing both his legs back up on the chair so he was perched on it precariously – rather like an owl, really, "The Green is good in that respect. Humans are a minority there; nobody really cares if you aren't . . . to a degree." He drank the tea, his hands still shaking.

"I'm sorry you have to go through that," said Remus, the weight of the years and his curse sinking deep into his words. There were nothing but sincerity and empathy in his voice, and Harry stared at his former teacher with eyes greener than even Lily's beautiful ones. "I wish that I could have been there to help you."

"You wouldn't have wanted to be there."

There was a far-away look in Harry's eyes as he stared at the wall. There were a number of expressions all vying for dominance of his countenance, none of them gaining any sort of holding, leaving his face completely blank. He scooped more sugar into the tea unseeingly.

"_He_didn't give me a normal curse," Harry said, sounding more and more like he had on that first night, begging Remus for asylum and help, "It's . . . a different world's version of lycanthropy. From a place called Valoren. It's . . ." His hands shook harder and the tea cup clattered down onto the table, splashing lumpy tea up onto Remus's face.

A tad offended by the insinuation that his suffering each month was to be overlooked, Remus swallowed the remains of his pride and cleaned up the mess of the tea cup with his wand. Still with the numb, alien look on his face, Harry began to speak again, mumbling uneasily in a quavering voice.

* * *

It was sunset.

The violet moon was round and glittering, sardonically mocking the tides and the therainthropes. If not for what the moon would promise to him, it would have been a beautiful sight in the sky. One of the gardeners had even sat on top of the rosary's glass roof with a sketchpad and paint to try and captured the skyscape. Astronomers in Rivage and in cities far away had their telescopes skyward, mapping out the artistically beautiful stars, wondering what precisely were the point of their jobs.

Harry felt his skin rise with gooseflesh, glad that he had opted for no food during the day and regretting that he had eaten yesterday too. He would have thrown it up if he hadn't been so stubborn. He stared up at the sky, standing outside in the garden in a thin shirt and pants that he didn't mind to see ruined, somehow knowing that the situation would end up terrible. He was also quite sure that Gethsemane was laughing.

The château did not have a basement. There was no room secure enough to contain him in it without Gethsemane being there to enhance it except the Rosary, but the plants inside of it would have swallowed him whole in a heartbeat. Wynn, his jaw locked and expression taunt, had explained what was to happen, even against Harry's drum struck protestations and furious cursing.

"It's better, lad, if we just let you run bonkers out in the countryside and find you in the morning. You're not going to hurt anyone if you do manage to find the one stupid sod wandering around during full moon; there's enough magic here to protect them."

"But it didn't protect me!" Harry had snarled, using up nearly all of his strength to shove a finger in Wynn's face, "I'm _not_–"

"Calm down," Wynn said, laying a hand down on Harry's shoulder and using his breezy magical suggestions to ease Harry. "Everything will be fine. It'll be better to have the freedom to run than being shut up in a basement."

What Wynn did not do was adequately explain why Harry hadn't so much as seen hide or hair of Wolfsbane Potion in the week before the full moon. He avoided the topic rather good with his mental tricks, and smiled as a father would smile before explaining something terrible.

Rin was even less helpful than Wynn. He had spent the whole day following Harry like a shadow, sometimes hovering in the air by the use of his minute wings.

"I've always wanted a dog," he said absently, prodding Harry in the back of the head with a fingernail that felt like a knife, "Plus, I can finally enter something into my brother's dog races and get him to shut up. You'd probably beat a greyhound, right?"

Harry swatted Rin in the face, annoyed and not in the mood. Chuckling, the guitarist pulled out his instrument. "When Salla's dog was upset, she always used to sing to make it feel better! Want me to sing for you, Fido?"

Luckily, Oswald the cook (a short, skinny individual that Harry would have thought to be a scientist more than a cook, looking ridiculous in a hat larger than he was tall) managed to occupy Rin's attention enough with food so that Harry could slide away, his body aching with fear and fatigue. Harry had already spent much of the day politely refusing a piece of even the driest, blandest toast.

Yet, now it was night. He was very much alone, with not even a wand to protect him (that was in a secure spot on his bookshelf that Mariette missed when she cleaned his room, mostly against his will as this writer adds with haste). Harry inhaled a deep breath to calm himself, and waited. For the first time in his life, he could say that his mind was truly blank.

He waited, enjoying the smell of the fresh air and the flowers all around him.

The moonlight from the Fiddler's Green, this writer must explain in a momentary interjection, has a number of magical properties that astrological magicians have not yet discovered and likely never will. To certain beings – such as the fairies in the wand shop – it was their source of being, where they were born from and where they will return when they die. To others, it is a means of channeling the more arcane branches of light magic, a time where rituals were accomplished in uttermost secrecy.

And, as well known, to those such as the werewolves it was a terrible bane. Yet lesser known, to magicians who have committed themselves to the art and been in the Green for periods as short as Harry's time, it was a relaxant and a means to enhance latent abilities. Some of the lesser couth individuals might go as far to call it a magical steroid, but this writer leaves that topic alone past that point.

Even as he rode back towards his château in a carriage pulled by cyborg horses, Adrian Gethsemane pushed his head out of the window so his handsome face could be bathed in the indigo moonlight. In Liber and Elysion, their respective Lieges – Master Mages both – smiled and enjoyed the tickle of the light touch their cheeks. The three of them both savored the touch, but savored the knowledge the strength that they might have obtained.

And Harry breathed out in a strange and happy sigh where he stood in the garden, where the pollen from the asters brushed against his bare feet. He felt as if he had spent a long time soaking in a hot bath; his muscles were not tense under the light of the rising moon, his head was clear, and the omnipresent weight on his shoulders had lifted – slightly. Unbeknownst to him, there were only two breeds of werewolves who would ever feel this relaxed during the minutes preceding the transformation; spectral werewolves, made from only blacker of magicks, and those who freely became monsters.

There was a twang in his gut that burned like poison. It came suddenly and sharply, like a bolt of lightning – a fitting analogy for the young wizard out in the gardens, this writer remarks.

Harry's eyes opened, which was a mistake. The world had descended down into grayscale, blurring together in swirls of nauseam. He ground his teeth together and shut his eyes tight. Every ounce of bravery and courage – what Gethsemane had called his adventurously suicidal nature – was summoned forth and fought off the panic trying to creep into his heart.

Something beyond his control made his eyes open again and turn skyward. There, displayed against a backdrop of sable sky, was a round spectacle of a moon, looking lovingly down upon him. The light was entirely innocent and enticing, trying to pull his magic up towards it. He felt it tug at his soul – a strange pickling feeling unrelated to his nausea – and felt something else, something darker, hold it straight in place.

_Now_.

Harry swallowed painfully, and felt his human shape slip away in a flurry of agony and moonlight.

This writer feels that, as the one selected to chronicle these events in the life of one Harry Potter, she cannot adequately explain what terrible thoughts were coursing through his head. She lacks the ability to properly describe how it was his sense of Gryffindor bravery strangling his screams of pain and how, beneath the gild of courage, Harry felt himself as nothing more than what he really was – a young man with normal feelings thrust into a predicament that was beyond abnormal.

Instead, she offers the attempts written above, and proceeds to enlighten the loyal readers of hers on the more technical differences between a werewolf such as Remus Lupin and a spectral werewolf, which is what Harry Potter had become.

The werewolves of Ministry England (such as Professor Lupin) are sensitive to silver but immune to spells directly cast onto them. They change during the full moon, appear more fragile and older than most men, and modern potion-work has produced a lessening effect on their condition. There is no cure, and they are pariahs. That much readers of this tale already know.

Ministry England's werewolves cannot smell emotions on the air, nor is there even the faintest glint of amber-gold in their eyes. Those traits are reserved for other lycanthropes of other worlds, shared by spectral werewolves. As mentioned by Queen Gabrielle – Gethsemane might have said werewolf, but he didn't damn do werewolf.

Instead, he made, from the body of a teenage boy, what many other cultures on many other worlds called _a hellhound_.

Harry clawed at the ground in agony, his very core of being twisting and turning deep within his soul, crying out in terror at the transformation. His fingers had already bulged and the nails, beneath the damning moonlight, glinted like titanium razors, each an inch long or more. He gagged on the stenches in the air – blood from far-off fighting, memories of strife that had faded even from the soil, the paranoia that existed in every man's soul and fright in dying men's screams.

He knew something was terribly wrong from the minute he heard his bones start to snap and convulse. How he knew was how mothers knew their children were dead, how victims knew that their murderer was the last sight they'd see – an instinctual, terrible realization brought on by every sparking neuron in his screeching brain.

And that same source he had the most gut-wrenching feeling that these were the last sensations he'd ever feel as himself.

_**Then I will have the utmost pleasure of stripping you of your soul, your sanity, your **_**humanity**_**and letting you roam about the countryside as a bloodthirsty monster feasting on the flesh of virgins and children. **_

Gethsemane's words were some of the last Harry heard in the midst of his fugue state, and they should never have been. His threat seemed more like a guarantee now, cracking away at Harry's courage, but that only seemed to intensify in light of his master's words.

Still, though –

_Makeitend, makeitend, makeitend. _

The mantra repeated in terrified vain inside his head before being consumed by an all-encompassing blackness. Not unconscious – still lucky enough to feel the pain – his sentience had instead shut off for the sake of his sanity.

Bones cracked and shifted under the skin, expanding until the skinny wizard could have loomed over a small horse. In the midst of his shifting facial features – where little of human remained in his face – his eyes shifted skyward as his body barreled over. To any unfortunate soul who has stood before a displeased and starving grizzly, right before the creature tore them to shreds, they would have recognized the look in the eyes.

The eyes were elated, the green having all but gone, glowing with bio-luminescence and a color torn between molten gold and bloody scarlet.

The wolf, or rather lupine creature since there were few real features held in common with the wolf, shifted as the last of the transformation subsided. It stretched forearms bulging with muscle that could have turned steel to confetti, each claw longer than one of Harry's human fingers. It yawned, a pinkish tongue lolling out between rows of teeth whose description could not be put down to paper under any shape or form.

It howled a bloodthirsty howl, making Mariette the maid scream inside the château when the howl reached through the windows, and Wynn Sambuca shudder with memories of his childhood. Delightful euphoria stretched out through its body, and it took tentative steps through the flowers. (A number of gardeners were likely to sob at the sight of what the claws did to their meticulously planted beds).

Steadier on its feet, it began to run, racing across the landscape of Arcady with exhilaration and unparalleled joy. Even in the slump of blackness that was Harry's human mind, he gave a mental grin to himself at the happiness.

The shores of the Ganeden glittered under the moonlight, the fish beneath the waters doing whatever fish did in the middle of the night, scales glittering like coral in the water. A heavy mist of sand spread out behind the wolf as it barreled down the beach, its eyes joyous beyond measure.

Ironically, it was probably the happiest Harry had ever felt in his whole life, and he wasn't even the one controlling his body and feeling the emotion.

Down the road to Rivage it ran, more often than spiraling off of the main road and along side of the riverbed. Hunger gnawed at its innards, the thing that was really controlling the beast's actions. Truly, it desired meat, human flesh or something similar preferable, but the closest it could reach was fish.

It sidled down to a stop so as to examine the various animals moving through the water in the river that had lent Rivage its name, intrigued by its reflection – it appeared as little more than a great mass of shadows and glowing eyes in the jet water – and snapped its huge jaw down into the water.

There was a splutter and a crunch. The beast, its fur wet, held a splendid fish in its teeth, and snapped down on the scales and bones. There was little difference in the taste between the meat and the skeleton; the meat was slightly sweeter and the skeleton saltier. Unhappily – its gut would have much rather preferred bigger game – it resumed its fishing with a great trollop through the mud, intent on filling the stomach Harry had kept empty for a day and a half.

And it was with a catfish's dismembered corpse between his teeth that the wolf jerked its head up, and its eyes danced.

There was a perfectly good explanation for its intrigue, though one that many would have found revolting.

Walking swiftly down an unbeaten track with a katana in his hands was a traveler by hobby, dressed in leather armor and a splendid cloak adorned with gilt, was a man by the name of Cal Marstell. He was a handsome figure, well-built and muscular, and a perfect meal for a hungry werewolf. The smell of his hot flesh was unbearable to its starving stomach.

The beast would have grinned if it could. It gave a growl that promised death, one that made the birds in the sky above trill in terror, and sprang up the riverbed, mud and water clinging to its coat.

Cal heard the growl and saw the mass of black rise up like a lich from the water, shadows clinging to its body as much as the mud. He gave his own grin, eager to fight a monster after spending an unpleasantly boring time walking from town to town, and tightened his hands around the hilt of his weapon.

The katana was out of its scabbard in an instant. The scabbard swung off to the side, and the blade sliced a clean cut through the creature's belly. It gave a miserable sound, falling short of hitting its prey, but it would take a little more than a gash to down it.

"Big thing, aincha?" asked Cal, his country accent still rather audible even after years of travel. He dug his feet down into the ground, and waited for the beast to get back up on its feet. "I've dealt with bigger, damn dog."

The smell of its own blood infuriated the beast that had once been a boy, its stomach yowling for food, that one thought all-consuming. It bent down low, circling its prey – the human man with enough meat on his bones to feed a pack for a week – but knew it was folly to leap again.

Before it could decide, Cal swung forward, nicking the wolf across its muzzle in a hit that struck down to bone and through cartilage. Snarling, it struck forward, slicing against hardened leather but drawing no blood. Even driven by instincts, the wolf was still only an hour old, and Cal Marstell had fought monsters for thirty years.

It slammed its body up against Cal's legs, unsettling him and allowing the wolf to lunge for his throat. Saliva, blood, and chum clustered in its teeth, its eyes pouring down into Cal's weathered face.

_No_, moaned the bit of Harry still left, but the cry was cut short.

A knife flashed out of Cal's sleeve and across the beast's features, coming so dangerously close to blinding the creature permanently. Instead, the blindness was momentary, and caused the beast to stagger, giving Cal just enough time to strike it in the side with the katana with the force of a speeding car.

There was a number of things that really culminated in Cal's victory but spared the wolf's – and thus Harry's – life. The fact that it was the first transformation of the werewolf's life had much to do with it, and Harry's emaciated state prior to the events also contributed to the weakness in the beast's swipes at the swordsman. Cal's unwillingness to continue the fight – since it was late and he was tired from walking all day – and the assumption that his final blow had been the _coupe d'grace_ also had a major part.

Also, some might have said that it was how Cal sent the wolf spiraling down into the river, where the mud sucked it down into paralysis and its head collided with a rock. It was not enough to knock the beast out, but enough to awaken parts of Harry's human sentience.

Cal Marstell looked down at the creature engulfed in shadows and inky fur, and nodded. He sheathed back his sword and knife, and made his way back onto the path he'd been taken, proud of his victory. He even hummed a little ditty under his breath, a guttural song from his childhood.

For Harry, there was not happiness, but rather the feeling like waking up from a long, terrible nightmare or coma. He did not have enough of himself to recall great portions of his memory or personality, but did retain enough self to know that he wasn't in the situation he should have been in. (If that passage made coherent sense to this writer's readers, she has done a fine job).

In the water, he gave a moan that came out as a whimper, and licked at the blood on his muzzle reflexively. His sides hurt terribly, and much of the water around him was turning red from the blood pooling out. It was a bad wound that would have killed a number of creatures – but the few perks of his condition merited quicker healing.

Still, though, he curled his tail around himself and obsessively licked at the wounds, moaning in pain and weariness. When fish would flutter by him, he'd snap at it instinctively, the taste a welcomed distraction. The catfish in the Montague River were well-known as some of the most delicious in Arcady, and he was grateful for that.

It was in the riverbed that he spent much of the night, human thoughts and notions of his pain mingling alongside of the werewolf's carnal desires for food and speed. Dizzy from the blood-loss, he drifted in and out of consciousness, with a feverish dream spiking in his human self.

He was in the Hall of Prophecy again, clutching on tightly to the one that Trewlarney had made that had damned his life. As he ran away from Malfoy and the other Death Eaters, Harry sped through years and other events, the memories comingling into a giant blur of feeling and motion. Rounding a corner of glowing spheres, he found himself skidding to a halt in the middle of the graveyard below Riddle Manor.

The prophecy had twisted and shaped itself into an arm, connected to Cedric's ashen corpse. Yet, instead of the Death Eaters, there were Inferi, and giant looming shadows that were composed of everything a wolf fears when it is a cub.

Looming from the side of the Inferi was Lord Voldemort himself, splendid in robes of silk and black, slit-pupil eyes focused intently at Harry's every move, lipless mouth curling up into a smile at his enemy's pain and confusion. And opposite the Dark Lord was Adrian Gethsemane, fingering his fine rapier, his hellfire glare on his apprentice.

_**Ready to die Potter? **_said Voldemort in his high, cruel voice. His wand flashed through the air,_Avada Kedavra _sparkles lingering behind.

_**Having fun, boy? **_asked Gethsemane, holding the rapier like a fencer at the ready. Will-o-wisps danced behind him.

Harry shut his eyes and descended into a feverish blackness.

When the moon sank below the horizon and the sun rose, Harry was still semi-comatose and thus mercifully unable to feel the pain of the transformation back. Every bit of bone in his body cracked, shrank, reshaped, and healed in instants, though it did turn his body enough to plunge him face-first into the river.

Adrenaline and survival instincts pulled his mind awake, and his hands shook when he used them to push himself out of the river. Coughing out water and something that tasted disgustingly like raw fish, Harry's groggy mind snapped to attention sooner than it should have.

"Bloody hell," he croaked, clutching at his temples and mattered hair. He felt much as he had when he was seven – when Dudley and his new bicycle had collided with Harry, who'd been standing on the sidewalk. Nothing had broken, but he'd ached like it had.

There was scarring on his face from the knife and sword. One huge, angry gash spread from his left eyebrow towards his right temple, moving towards his infamous one. There was another across his nose and both cheeks that still had dried blood crusted around it, and an even worse by his ribs that Harry didn't want to look at.

He drummed his fingers against his head, not knowing what to do.

Harry felt terrible (such a pitiful understatement!), with wounds that had nearly killed him and needed to be looked at by a doctor. Coupled with that, he had no bloody clue where he was, his glasses were gone to the world blurred, and he was naked.

An adoring situation to wake up to, this writer remarks sardonically.

There were a number of things that could have made the situation worse, and one of them happened even before Harry's mind could fathom it.

"Oi! It's my favorite pretty, pretty princess!"

Rin Turncoat was standing on the road over the river, and he was grinning wickedly though Harry couldn't see him. He only recognized Rin by the guitarist's suave voice and a blackish, person-shaped blob, and groaned hoarsely.

"Damnit."

The guitarist skidded down by the river, looking as if all his dreams had come true. Harry, salvaging some bit of dignity, snapped, "What do you want?"

"Can't I help an ailing friend when they're down in the dumps?" Rin asked, his voice cracking with glee, "Besides, it finally shows me you're a guy!"

Harry grabbed a hold of a rock and threw it, missing Rin by a mile and only succeeding in straining his injured arm. The tug of muscle tore at the wound in his side, and he snarled out in pain.

"Aw Christ, that looks painful; here." Something landed on Harry's head and smelled strongly of pineapple and beer. It was Rin's long coat, which felt mercifully warm and was welcomed beyond measure. Standing uneasily and pulling the coat tight towards him, Harry looked at Rin's blurry outline.

"Thanks," he said, and really meant it.

"Yeah, yeah," said Rin hastily, waving a hand, "Just don't go telling people I can act _nice_, alright? I'm a Turncoat – we have a reputation to uphold!" Hastily, as if just thinking of it, he added, "Plus Sambuca paid me ninety gil to find you. Makes up for the bet you made me loose."

Harry pushed back his hair and limped a little behind Rin back towards Samedi. The only thing that really allowed him to keep moving was the thought that, back home, he could get something to eat and sleep off the pain – and wash the taste of fish out of his mouth.

He couldn't remember a lot of the night. He could remember the pain of transforming, the exhilaration of running, and the smell of blood, but little else. He could not remember anything of his fight and how he had gotten those scars, nor of his desire to kill the traveler – which was, in many ways, a blessing. Harry tried to remember if Professor Lupin had ever mentioned a lot about memory loss, but Professor Lupin had never mentioned much about his condition.

Well, that was understandable, thought Harry, shivering in the coat.

"Want some?" Rin flashed a flask in front of Harry, who caught the scent of whiskey. "It's addictively delicious!"

He took it and drank some. Having rarely tasted liquor, he choked on it, the whiskey burning his throat as it went down. Rin sniggered and called him a lightweight, but Harry took another drink. It was warm, and he was hoping desperately that he wouldn't catch something from being in the river for God-knows-how-long.

"Good," he said, making a face.

"Liar. Jesus, if Vert ever got a hold of you, she'd probably beat you into paste."

"Who?" The whiskey was doing a surprising lot to help relieve the soreness in his body, but it made him increasingly more aware of the pain from the scar in his side.

"My sister Vertelle. She's working in Celestia for the Battalion. Best job she's ever had – they love her there." He sounded wistful and Harry didn't really push the inquiry. His side was hurting too much to really think of more questions.

He fingered the scars on his face and cheek, wincing at the tenderness, trying to strangle out explanations for them from his memory. For the life of him, he couldn't, and somehow knew that was a very, very good thing. However, he didn't much fancy the idea of going around looking like Mad-Eye Moody's buddy copycat; he already had one scar, and that was more than enough.

"Oh, there's something I might have forgotten to mention."

"What?" Harry asked, but probably shouldn't have. His voice was low and his throat was burning each time he tried to talk. It was all an aftereffect from the howls he'd spouted out during the night. The smell coming off of Rin wasn't a good sign, either; Wynn had had it when he'd informed Harry of his full moon arrangements.

"Adrian's waiting for you, and boy is he _pissed_you kept him waiting."

"Adrian . . . _he's_here?"

Somewhere in the far back of his mind, he remembered Olethea's words from a few days ago. A holiday called Fiacre in some city . . . where Gethsemane was to formally announce Harry's apprenticeship. His heart stopped cold, and he swore with enough vigor and creativity to make Rin give a low whistle of admiration. The last, last, _last_thing that he wanted to do right now, his body cold and sore and wounded, begging for sleep and food, was to get ready for some fancy gala.

However, it was not in Harry's nature to complain to anybody but his own mind, and had fallen into a sullen silence walking beside Rin. Each step he took was one closer towards collapsing onto the dirt – he had, after all, wandered quite far from Samedi during the night, and if he had not met with Cal Marstell he would have likely made it to Rivage. Rin was whistling obnoxiously, a gay and cheery song in a foreign language that sounded quite a bit like gibberish, and even strummed his long nails against his guitar, his thumbnail like a pick.

"So then, it seems that _you_owe me a favor."

Harry groaned in the back of his throat. "What?"

"Hey, don't sound so cold! I did, after all, save your _life_." In the blurry haze of the world, Harry saw Rin flash him a wicked grin. "Let me think for a moment of what I could get out of a Master Mage . . ."

This was not going to be pretty. "You know I don't _know_anything yet," Harry snapped back, his temper still rising up from his injured chest.

"Well, you've made that painfully obvious." Rin stopped strumming his guitar and clasped a cold hand on Harry's colder shoulder, his grip like stone. "Now then, my lovely little princess, when you _do_know some magic and I expect that'll be soon enough," (There was a certain quality to those words that was threatening), "You owe me an Edel Raid."

"A what?"

Rin sniggered coolly but did explain after another round of insults or two that rather made the heat rise into Harry's face. "A sentient weapon; a person that turns into a sword or such. Mandylion owns three, and I want the redhead."

Harry, who could not quite picture what Rin had attempted to describe and certainly knew he would have better things on his mind if he ever met Mandylion (the man who turned his apprentices into monsters for sport), gave an absent nod and focused instead on arriving to Samedi conscious. The gash in his side was threatening to start bleeding again, each step tearing at the tender wound.

His feet were bleeding (but warm now) when he finally caught a whiff of the heavy perfumes of the garden, and gagged on an unfamiliar, painful stench. There was something by the château that was polluting the sweet air with the smell of sulfur and magic – a strong, throbbing smell that no language could contain. It put only one thing into Harry's mind, most prevalent the closer he got to his new residence; Adrian Gethsemane.

Sure enough –

"Ah, what a sorry sight you are." Gethsemane's voice crackled with glee. Harry burned with rage, glaring with all his might at the reddish shape that was the Master Mage. The man had left after he had cursed Harry, and so the wizard had never had the pleasure of insulting him face to bloody face. "You look more like a garbage rat than you do a human – and you smell worse than that."

"Go to hell," Harry snarled to him, the first time he had ever uttered the words and meant it. Gethsemane chuckled darkly, a musical sound.

"Perhaps you've not yet learned your lesson, boy. Now then – go shower and get dressed; it's a long ride to the capital." He made an unpleasant face. "And I need to speak with you about the state of your work ethic."

Rin shoved Harry hard in the back and he stumbled off of the dirt road and onto the softer stone of the pathway that led up to Samedi's fine entrance. Although Harry could not see it now, he knew that the welcoming foyer of the building was a splendid, albeit modest, site, with a sakura trees beside it and a pond fresh from an imperial garden. Fine carvings encircled the posts around the door, and runes of protection had been woven into the cherry wood, invisible to the human eye but somehow calling softly out to Harry, telling him he was safe inside their walls.

Nobody stopped him to say hello, which was mercy on their account and peace to his. One of the blonde maids quivered when he passed and gave a gruff hello, yet all their faces swam together. He did not, however, crash into walls or corners as he was apt to do when he didn't have his glasses – a very, very welcome thing, this writer remarks, considering the first crash would have torn open the cut at his ribs.

When he'd reentered into his room, the trek from door to bedroom an eternity, Harry resisted the urge to collapse on the bed. Somehow, he found his spectacles, crying hoarsely when they pinched his nose, and looked at his reflection in the mirror.

_That_was not a pretty sight.

He touched the long, terrible scar across his face, and moaned viciously at the thought of going anywhere looking as if he had lost a battle to a bear.

* * *

[**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers.  
The Battalion is from St. Faren's Kin, the property of Jess Bawgus, not me.  
Edel Raids are from Elemental Gelade, owned by Mayumi Azuma, not me.

[**Author's Note**

In the spirit of my usual updating schedule, Happy Hanukkah! Maybe I'll manage another chapter or two in time for Christmas and my birthday (December 27. Worst birthday day ever.)  
Also, in case some might want to see it, this is the place I've based Samedi after, which is just described as a rural château in France: http://upload. a separate note, is anybody else having problems with the site messing around with spacing if you use italics or bold only after you've put in the chapter?

[**Statistics**

[_Pages_ 15

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[_Font Size_ 12


	11. Nueva Fortunada

--**Patina**--

* * *

Kapitel Elf

Nueva Fortunada

* * *

**Opheliac**

You know the games I play  
And the words I say  
When I want my own way  
You know the lies I tell  
When you've gone through hell  
And I say I can't stay

**Emilie Autumn**

* * *

It was a mystery how many actual miles lay between Samedi and Nueva Fortunada; nobody had ever made the journey without the aid of magic. Most took it by teleportation, which was the easiest, but lacked the flair of dramatics that Gethsemane thrived upon. For parties and holidays, he came by carriage, which was lacquered, white, and an exuberantly amount of money to own and maintain.

The fame of the capital's Filate celebration merited the use of Gethsemane's phaeton. Comfortably pulled by at least a dozen cyborg horses, it hammered across the landscape, the fields and forests and lakes turned into a blur of color beyond the window. It made Harry's stomach knot and he leaned backwards into the seat, eyes shut and shoulders tight.

"Enjoy the moon last night?"

They'd been in the carriage for three hours now. Harry had not said so much as a syllable, because he didn't want to speak to the redhead, and because he felt like he might vomit if he opened his mouth. Gethsemane, though, had filled up that silence nicely, his cool voice making sure that Harry didn't get a moment of much-desired sleep.

"I assure you that however miserable you are now, I can make it tenfold," he said, leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs, "Especially since you've proven yourself both empty-headed and a waste of effort. Have you _actively _been trying to avoid learning?" His long fingers were holding a folded piece of paper – the exam Olethea given Harry a week ago.

Harry's mouth stretched into a taunt, furious line that threatened to curl upwards with irony. At least the test had done something useful by irritating Gethsemane. However, he still said nothing, and Gethsemane continued onward, voice growing colder and the enunciation sharper, "The curriculum that Olethea has been working from is the same that Nikoli and I mastered at the age _of_ six. You, at _seventeen_," (he slammed the test into Harry's chest, who did not grab it), "Failed horrendously."

Harry smirked though it nearly became a yawn. He looked back over the test, which had been unmarked by any teacher's pen, and at the truly terrible answers he had provided to each and every question, even the one asking the date. Crumbling it and pushing it into his pocket, he croaked, "So what?"

"You agreed to become my student –"

"You _forced _me," Harry corrected snappishly, but Gethsemane's eyes narrowed and his lips curled.

"Yet, you uttered the phrase 'I'll be your apprentice', and that's enough to disprove coercion in any court. Now," and his voice took on a colder tone even though his eyes blazed, "I'm a patient man, boy, but I don't like having my patience tried – especially when you're flaunting your ignorance in my face." He leaned in towards Harry, and a static taste filling up the air. Harry stiffened and the cut on his abdomen tugged painfully. "Has that gardener girl been that much of a distraction from your school work?"

Harry's eyes narrowed and his heart tightened, as though a fist had squeezed the blood out of it. "No, she hasn't. Don't bring her –"

"Then quite a number of people in Rivage are lying through their teeth," snapped Gethsemane and he spat venom better than Harry ever could, "If you need incentive to learn, then here it is; if I ever seen anything as abysmal as _this_," he snapped his fingers and the crumpled test flew out of Harry's pocket. It reappeared, smooth and crisp, in the Master Mage's hand, "Again, then the gardener . . ."

Smirking, he made the paper burst into flames so hot that even the ashes were consumed by it. Harry watched the fire burn, dancing in the air, unaware of what it could do if someone wanted it to. His eyes were wide and glassy, face pale, and not from illness.

There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Gethsemane would make good on his promise.

"You bastard," Harry hissed in a low, quiet voice. He clenched his hands into fists resting on his knees and thought of Alice, who had only tried to be kind to him.

Gethsemane did not respond, but his smile stretched wider and thinner. He uncrossed his legs and tugged his white gloves by the cuffs, so that Harry could see the bloodstone cufflinks.

"Onto better business," he said, the coldness of his own voice gone, "Owing to your unexpected illness while I last visited my summer home," (Harry's fists tightened where they were kept on his knees), "I was unable to teach you any practical magic. Since we have a bit of a ride ahead of it, it would be wise to use the time productively."

While knowing that he both felt awful enough to pass out and that Gethsemane would be unmerciful if he refused, Harry – his jaw tight – gave two nods that made the world spin around unpleasantly. He kept his eyes down on his shoes, their polished brown toes and golden buckle. Gethsemane gave a thin smile that made his features lose some of their surreal appeal.

"I think we shall start with fire magic; that was my first forte as a youth," he continued, locking onto Harry's eyes, "Though I think you'll have a problem getting out of the habit of waving a wand to summon sparks. Hold out your hand." He extended his, palm upwards and fingers curled, as though he were holding a ball. Harry mirrored the action, noticing that his hand was shaking terribly.

He didn't really know what he was supposed to do. When Hagrid had first told him about being a wizard, Harry had spent a long time trying to see if he could do the kind of magic fantasy books talked about. The type where a wave of a hand summoned up great balls of fire to destroy enemies – though, as Harry found out, actual magic was nothing like fictional. He'd never succeeded, and now he was being asked to.

"Casting magic always comes from within a body – elemental magic is a branch of casting. Elemental magic is one of the most common, bastardized forms you'll find; every idiot who can summon a spark claims to be an elemental mage." A bitter tinge entered his words. "What separates the charlatans from a real magician is the beauty in their craft."

Harry chewed on his tongue a little. His brain dully processed the words and he blinked several times to keep himself awake. What finally kept his eyes open was the image of Alice consumed by fire seared onto the backs of his eyelids.

"Look inward," Gethsemane demanded, "For the source, for the warmth that runs through you when you wave your wand and speak in Latin."

Harry shut his eyes and exhaled deeply, pushing himself deeper into the velvet cushions and the warmth of his longcoat. He wanted to sleep so badly and it would be so easy, but he couldn't. He tried to think – tried to find whatever he felt when casting magic – and succeeded in melding his thoughts together into incoherent gelatin.

"Don't sleep, boy!"

"If I do," he snapped, his eyes still shut, "I'd be able to _think _better."

"You shouldn't have to think." Gethsemane was rolling his eyes; the action was reflected in his voice, "What did you feel when you first waved your magic stick in London?"

"Warm," Harry muttered. Just like this coat . . .

"Make that warmth come forward. It obeys _you_ and it will come if you ask it to."

Harry's hand was still held out, palm up and fingers bent like he were holding an orange, but he shut it. His grip shifted, so that the invisible orange became an invisible wand. He thought of that day, when he was eleven, long ago in Ollivander's. It was easier to picture it since he was barely awake. He didn't flick his wrist, because he hadn't then, and just thought of the hum the holly-and-phoenix wand had pulsed through his fingertips . . .

A tickle touched his fingertips. Harry opened his weary amber-touched eyes and looked. Licking the top of his thumb and index was a tiny flame, too weak even to sustain a color, shaking like his hands as it fought for life. It startled him because it wasn't burning.

"Don't let it die!" Gethsemane snapped between his teeth, "Feed it."

Harry swallowed, watching the fire, the tremors of his hands increasing. Gethsemane's eyes were blazing and Harry was staring at the fire on his fingertips.

Magic. Think of magic. Think of Charms and Transfiguration – Think of his Patronus and the Unforgivables – Think of home, of England, of his friends and Hogwarts . . . Gone now. Thanks to him.

He looked up at Gethsemane's impossibly handsome face, and his teeth clenched behind pursed lips. The fire grew harder and a bloody scarlet, consuming his whole fingers and not just the tips, dancing and lacing his skin with tendrils of white-bright fire. Almost beautiful if the color wasn't like –

Then it died, instantaneous and unexpected, and another wave of fatigue swept through all of Harry's being. He sank deeper, half his body not even in the seat and only supported by his arms falling on the armrests. Gethsemane leaned backwards, his straight posture exaggerated when compared to Harry's. Something was dancing in his eyes and making his smile stretched, authentic but dark, towards his temples.

"So you have some talent after all, Harry," he said unsurprised, "I expect to see the same effort extended towards your theoretical work."

Gethsemane said nothing else for the rest of the trip to the capital, and Harry slept, looking like he had been thrown into his position, a smile on his scarred face.

He felt like he slept for days – passing them by only in soothing darkness and quiet. Sometimes he would wake up, blinking once or twice and shifting his position to something a bit more comfortable. Harry didn't even dream, or at least he thought he didn't because he remembered nothing.

Harry thought two days passed by. He wanted two more to pass, but a long, thin, sharp something was poking him in the side.

"Wake up. We're here, and I'm sure you don't want to be seen looking like the bedraggled mutt you were."

He sat up and felt his back stiffen in one crick. Harry shook his head and opened his eyes, very aware that the pinch of the pince-nez on his nose was unbearable. Gethsemane was still sitting in front of him, though a silk fedora now accompanied his red suit. He was smirking. "Comfortable, are you?"

"Shut up," Harry said, pulling himself to a seat and rubbing his head. His brain was working slowly but when it finally began to connect dots he realized the clothes he had thrown on at Samedi had been replaced with a black and silver suit, with a tie done up so tight it was pressing into his throat. "Where am I?"

"A carriage. You're astigmatic, not blind, though one day that will be corrected too." Harry ignored that and leaned forward to look out the window, rubbing his nose.

His last picture of the outside world had been of the countryside around Rivage and Samedi, and for a moment the urbanized nature of a city threw him. Harry's eyes turned skyward, at the knotting spires of buildings made of glass and crystal glittering under the August sun, at the variety of odd creatures and beings occupying the azure sky.

The first image Harry had of Nueva Fortunada was the Ishtar Cathedral, one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture in all the Green. It glittered, like ice, but didn't melt – tall, crooked, Baroque towers were covered in fresco and angelic statues too real to have been sculpted. However, like its world, the city was a hodgepodge of various things from various worlds, and so Harry's eyes traveled from the Cathedral to the brick and concrete airship factory next to it. He winced, the juxtaposition hurting his eyes.

"When we arrive at the Turin, you will stay by my side until we enter the ball. As I am certain you will talk without thinking, I ask that you keep your mouth shut for as long that is possible." (Harry was too busy wondering what kind of spiky green material made up a rectory). "Tonight I will be introducing you to my peers, or at least Nachtmusik and Ark. Nikoli was unable to attend." He twisted his face displeasing.

Harry recognized the names – Olethea wrote letters to a Locke Nachtmusik and Randolph Ark. He still stared out the window, at the people walking swiftly down a marble sidewalk. A man and a woman were arm and arm, dressed in the corpses of more than a dozen peacocks. He didn't want to meet anybody like Gethsemane, people who were willing to rip people from their own homes and lives.

"His Majesty will be in attendance, as will his wife," he spat out, "And the bulk of his children, including your fiancée."

"She's not my fiancée," Harry barked, turning to glare at him, a growl low in his throat, "I'm not going to marry her."

"Oh yes you are. It was quite a challenge arranging for the marriage and paying the bride price – you will pay me back, eventually, for such."

"Why?" Harry spat, clenching his hands and teeth. Gethsemane chuckled, making Harry stiffen his shoulders and lock his jaw. He even thought about trying to re-summon the flame so he could use it to burn the smile from the redhead's face. "Why should I?"

"Respectability. People will be less likely to reject you for your irritating qualities when you're my apprentice and a married Prince of Turin-Ishtar." He shuddered violently. _Prince_? It was too much prestige; he didn't get a moment's peace now, and he never would again if he was _prince_. "You will of course spend the bulk of this time with Isabelle."

Harry had stopped listening. He took the pince-nez off and leaned back, eyes shut, rubbing his nose, and trying not to think at all.

"You!" A sudden chill swept through Harry, making his teeth chatter horrendously and his gaze sweep towards Gethsemane again. He shivered and wrapped himself tighter in the coat.

"What?"

"What did I just say?"

Harry thought for a moment, screwing up his face with the process. "Something about my name, sir," he said weakly. He was sure that was the right answer even though he hadn't heard a word that the redheaded Master Mage was saying.

"Give no one your real name," he said again. He didn't even accent his words with threats or venom, and Harry raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Give _no one_. Tell them your name is Henry Black. It's what I've said."

"What – _why_?" The name Black struck a painful twinge in his heart and made a lump rise up in his throat, even after two years mourning and grief.

Impatience crept into his unaccented voice and eyes. "Names are power. They mean things – don't you even know that?" Harry said nothing and Gethsemane leaned backwards still in his seat, chin turned upwards and long hair shining like silk as city-lights stuck it. "Harry James Potter," he pronounced carefully, enunciating each syllable, "Means you are the last scion of a near-dead family, that you were named for a father and grandfather. Every bit of that name stands as a memorial to dead relatives. If you ever waste your time with identification magic, your name would lend you power towards the dead and memories."

Harry shuddered as the thoughts fell into his mind. He had known, since childhood, that Harry had been the name of his maternal grandfather, because Aunt Petunia had had to help Dudley with a family tree project once. His name was a memorial to the dead. It seemed both fitting and cruelly ironic.

"And if other people, people who know how to control and like to do it, knew your real name, they'd use it against you. They'd use the familial memory in your name and use it to destroy your family – or those you consider to be your family." He tugged at his gloves again and put his feathered fedora on his head. The effect made him look like a musketeer or cavalier. "Thus, going by an assumed name ensures you are protected."

Henry Black. Harry tested the name on his tongue soundlessly. It sounded wrong, decidedly fake. Harry, though, was content with that, because it didn't sound like it could ever be his name.

* * *

The sky was lovely, dark and deep, a never-ending sea of indigo spotted with diamonds and two gemstone moons. They hung low over the monolithic tribute to Rococo and Eleven architecture that was the Turin, the year-round of the royal family of the Green (or at least the Green's last remaining royal family). Lights danced around it, evanescent and lobular, and the most beautiful music a violin ever produced swarmed like bees from the veranda Harry was being led towards.

Harry had only ever felt this overwhelmed two times in his life before – when he had first gone to Diagon Alley and his first time seeing Hogwarts. His head was spinning in more than a thousand directions, trying to see all of the translucent metal the walls and floor were made of. Personally, he thought everything was gaudy beyond measure, as if the Turin's builder had tried to cram hundreds of different kinds of designs in a place where only one would do fine. This writer sheepishly remarks that she lacks the skills to properly describe the elaborate amalgamation that the royal family used as a home, and hopes her loyal readers may forgive her.

The castle alone was too much, but Harry was also assaulted with the variety of people inside.

There were hundreds of crowds, hundreds of people talking and wearing every conceivable thing as clothing. Harry saw a woman with cat ears wearing a dress composed of scarves, with a man dressed in armor that made him look like a bloated teakettle. There were people with hair, skin, and eyes every color of the rainbow, with fur, feathers, and fangs. There were people who Harry was sure weren't even really people, but rather animals that had managed to learn English and fool the bouncers.

And all of them stopped whatever they were doing when Gethsemane and his apprentice passed. Quiet ran through them all like the plague and, with Gethsemane's waltz-like walking hurrying Harry and him forward, the men and women all did some form of bow or curtsy to them. Harry was walking with his shoulders and arms locked in awkward positions, looking dead ahead to avoid noticing everyone's eyes on him. He became aware, too, that the moment he passed people they began to gossip – about him.

"The Liege of Arcady has finally picked an apprentice. I never thought I would see the day," remarked a woman with a heavy accent that made her sound drunk.

"He's quite old to have been selected." Several men nodded, their scaly skin reflective.

"The Lady of Mag-upon-Mell is to be his wife, I have heard – I daresay we were all surprised that His Majesty agreed to let an apprentice take his daughter's –"

"Hey Princess!"

Harry stopped walking. He sniffed the air and, sure enough, caught the smell of pineapples. "Oh bloody _hell_," he moaned, and turned to the left. Gethsemane had already gone ahead, towards a group of women wearing cloudy gowns made of vapor.

Pushing aside people as though they were tree branches, dressed in a motley arrangement of Victorian clothes and a feathered top hat, was Rin Turncoat. His guitar was gone, but he was still wearing the strap across his front. He was grinning like he'd won the lottery, half-running and half-plowing people aside as he came to Harry's side. "Fancy seeing you here!" he shouted, thumping Harry on the shoulder, his fingers covered in rings.

"What're you doing?" Harry asked weakly and Rin sniggered richly.

"Enjoying the party, of course!" He toasted the air with the glass of champagne he was holding. At least it looked like champagne, but Harry could smell cinnamon instead of alcohol. "My ma's a General, and they couldn't keep me away from free booze and fancy women if they tried." He took a long drink from the champagne glass. "You look better in the suit than you did naked, I'll give you that."

"Shut up," he snapped, scarred face going red. Even as Harry walked swiftly down the hallway, listening to the hush and the gossip his presence brought, Rin followed after him.

"This your first party?" he asked, inhuman eyes twinkling, "You needto try the cognac. You'd make a hilarious drunk, I think. Oh, and Locke's here – she's got a gift for you, ma said."

"Locke Nachtmusik?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, old Locke," Rin said, tipping back the glass to drain it, "The old whore's pregnant again. It's her," (he crossed his eyes and twisted his lips in thought), "Fourth kid."

Harry hadn't thought Locke had been a girl's name – it sounded more like a thief's alias or a murderer's nickname. But, then again, things were different here. Harry half-listened to Rin babble in his ear, the cinnamon-champagne making half his words nonsense, and instead focused on making sure he didn't get lost.

The corridors in the Turin seemed malleable – one moment Harry was certain the walls were marble, and then next they were limestone encrusted with gold leaf. The constant changing and shimmering was making his head whorl, and it worsened when people started to come up to him. Even in his peripheral vision, the corridor was different from when he looked at it straight on.

"How can you stand this?" he asked Rin, who raised an eyebrow.

"Stand what? Grey Tundry?" he pointed at a woman with beehive hair. "I ignore her, for the most part." Harry shook his head. He found it impossible that anyone could get used to the constant changing of a building, since he was feeling agitation and claustrophobia climb up into his heart and throat.

Without Gethsemane to ward them off, many of the party-goers did not show Harry's personal space any respect. They swarmed around him, shoving Rin aside in attempts to shake his hand and nod their heads sycophantically.

"Baron Visigoth, at your service, Sir Apprentice –"

"Elisia Cüdvald, the pleasure is –"

"I have heard you were a Prince of an England, Sir Apprentice –"

His hand was shook by so many people it went numb, and his nose was assaulted by all the cologne and perfume that they wore in ungenerous proportions. Harry was even pulled into a bone-crunching hug by a woman with a lion mane and diamond-studded glasses.

"Would you do me the honor of having a dance tonight, Sir Apprentice?" she asked in a voice deeper than his. Harry babbled a response, his eyes wide, and slowly backed away.

A man pulled him back by the shoulder, the three clawed fingers on his hand digging into his shoulder. "Sir Apprentice Arcady?" he asked nasally, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Sire Piotr Rijn." Harry stared at him and swallowed thickly, only remembering to bow his head respectfully at the last moment. Piotr Rijn was no more human than Hedwig, but a raven where she was an owl, and squeezed into an Edwardian suit.

"Nice . . . nice to meet you," Harry said, shaking what Rijn offered as a hand. His head wasn't making sense of anything because there were too many babbling compliments circling around in the air. Whatever was excluding the smell of pheasant wasn't helping, either, because his stomach was completely empty.

"The pleasure is mine, my lord," Rijn interjected, making the avian equivalent of a smile. He cocked his head to one side, and the obsidian eyes sparkled. They lost the glitter, though, when they turned towards Rin in his top hat. "Young Master Turncoat."

"Birdie," Rin replied, toasting him. Harry wondered where he had gotten another glass of champagne.

"You know him?" Harry asked though it was to neither of them in particular. Rin answered before Rijn had a chance to open his beak.

"Oh yeah. That there's Ark's Steward. Like what alcohol-boy is to Gethsemane." He drank more of his champagne, smacking his lips loudly and sighing. Rijn narrowed his eyes.

"Quite right. Lord Ark is eager to meet you, Sir Arcady," Rijn told Harry, who was feeling more and more out of place by use of titles. He opened his mouth to say 'Just Harry' but shut it, since he wasn't even supposed to use his real name anymore. "His apprentices have accompanied him tonight – Sirs Nicé and Pseudomonarchia."

"What?"

"Ozzy Pseudomonarchia," Rin said though his pronunciation was in no way similar to Rijn's, "Scary kid. Has voices in his head – and not the kind that magic gives you. The real kind." He rolled his eyes. "The booze needs to be stronger – they served absinthe last year."

"Would you grant Lord Ark the pleasure of your company?" Somehow it didn't seem like a request. Rijn's eyes were looming down on him from a head three feet above Harry's, watching his every mood. If Harry's eyes could see auras, Rijn's would have matched Sambuca's the night he came to Privet Drive – deep burgundy, like merlot or blood. Travelers, this writer remarks, are as fickle as the worlds they flicker through.

He didn't want to meet another Master Mage, not when his first experience had been Adrian Gethsemane. Harry swallowed thickly and raked his fingers through his hair. His fingers touched the long scar across his nose, which was tender still, the skin knotted up like a scab. It probably wouldn't be in his best interests to refuse, either, else he might end up as something worse than just a werewolf.

"Of course," he said, dully, sighing a little.

"I haven't seen Randy in ages," Rin muttered, following Harry and Rijn. It was better to just follow someone, Harry realized, rubbing his temples thoroughly. Made life easy to stop making decisions. "Is he still . . .?"

He passed by a man with a live turkey worn as a hat and felt his stomach twist again. Lord, he was hungry, and Harry wasn't sure why he found the sight of a raw turkey appetizing. Was he just that hungry, or that inhuman?

Harry took the glass of champagne from Rin's hands when the demon wasn't looking and drained it. It tasted absolutely terrible, like bubbly snicker doodles, but at least his stomach wasn't completely empty anymore.

"Hey!" Rin shouted childishly, "That's my booze! Get your own, Princess."

"Oh shut up."

* * *

The Royal Ballroom was not malleable, Harry saw with great relief. It was solid, sleek, the floor made of obsidian and mirrors. The walls were draped with golden silk in honor of Filate and butterflies captured in hanging bell jars. A string quartet was playing, seated on a gilded dais, but none of the instruments were from Earth and none of the musicians were human. It was, however, beautiful music that swarmed through him with his blood.

Even though Harry wanted to look all around and up at the painted ceiling – fifty feet above them – there was a smell that was occupying all of his attention and focus.

It was the strangest conglomeration of scents he'd tasted thus far (Harry had never thought he'd ever be using that combination of words in his life). There was rose-water, sugar cane, and old paper – moss and bell pepper – vanilla incense, rotten meat, and gunpowder – and the indescribable taste of magic. Harry clasped a hand on his nose to keep the smells from overpowering him; he already was feeling terrible from the full moon and the vertigo from the Turin's corridors.

All of the smells were coming from three people standing amongst a group of thirty. Harry, though having never met them, could pick them out instantly from their smells. They were Master Mages. Their smells were as strong as Gethsemane's, their presence as potent, and Rijn was leading Harry right towards the three.

"Yes, I have heard that its premier did well," a woman's lyrical voice floated out, "But I don't know how it will fare in the long run."

"I hardly –" began a young girl but then stopped. The voice was smiling. "Well, the man of the hour has come at last." The people turned around suddenly, as though they were one, except for the three with the powerful smells and auras. Even Harry, who couldn't see nimbuses around them, could catch the residue owing to his inhumanity.

They were the color of magic itself, a deep purple and green, alight with sparks of all other colors.

One of the women broke away from the crowd first and walked towards Harry. She was one of the Mages, the one who smelled like rose water and paper, and he stiffened in his spot when he smelled her approaching. His first meeting with Gethsemane had robbed him of his old life – what would she do to him? Harry eyed her closely as she walked, trying to look at all the details on her.

She was blonde, hair curling around her oval face, and spilling from a high ponytail towards the heels of slipper-clad feet. Her hands were interlocked over the top of her large round belly – she was pregnant and Harry, who had never met a pregnant woman before, tried not to stare. Her dress trailed behind her, with great bell-like sleeves and a high collar. It was the same purple color as her nails and eye shadow.

"Ah, Sir Arcady," she said, voice spilling slowly from her throat like syrup. Her violet eyes had locked themselves directly onto Harry's green, and he saw her pupils were mere pinpricks, not even there completely, "Adrian has spoken of you quite frequently these past few weeks. I am Locke Nachtmusik." She smiled, showing dazzling white teeth, but her smile was genuine, and made her eyes light up like the moon.

"I'm, uh, Henry Black," Harry said, just barely remembering to use the other name as he shook Locke's hand. A tingle swept up through him, cold and tickling, where her fingertips touched the back of his hand. "Nice to, ah, meet you."

"Of course," she said, interlocking her fingers over her stomach, her lavender lips curling into a smile, "You're a bit older than I expected. Around Flintlock's age." Harry raised an eyebrow – she only looked about twenty. "He's somewhere in here – so are my other sons."

"How was the trip here for you?" one of the young girls by Locke asked. She had blonde ringlets and large, doe-like eyes – she could only be around eleven.

"My own apprentices," Locke introduced, welcoming Harry – and Rin, who trailed along – into the group. With elaborate, rolling gestures of her right hand, she pointed out the girl with ringlets and another, much younger girl with pure white hair. "Carolyn and Lyra." They curtseyed.

"It's an honor to meet you, Sir Apprentice of Arcady," Carolyn, the blonde, said, keeping her eyes low, "Many hopes for the best and brightest future."

"You too," Harry said absently. His throat had tightened unpleasantly and his eyes had softened and stayed on Locke's two girls.

They were so young – so much younger than him. Lyra could only be six or seven at the most. And she was dealing with the same things as him. She had been plucked from her world and bound to someone she didn't know. She was not going to see her friends or family again. He wondered if she had spent a month wallowing about that, like he had.

"We apologize for not being able to meet you earlier, Sir Arcady," Locke was explaining, her distinguished voice consuming the whole of his attention, "I hope our gift will make up for our lateness in welcoming you." She smiled even wider still. She was a very beautiful woman, Harry saw, and would have been flustered if she wasn't pregnant and therefore taken. But she, like Gethsemane, was only beautiful because of magic, and her taste in jewelry proved she was as vain as the redhead.

"Oh, I don't need a gift –" he started to say but Rin elbowed him in the side to keep him silent. However, the demon had hit the spot where he had been slashed on the full moon, and Harry had to keep himself from bellowing out in pain.

"You never refuse a gift, idiot – if you don't like it, you pawn it," Rin hissed, his breath smelling strongly of cinnamon champagne.

Locke, still smiling serenely with one hand on her swollen womb, took the wrist of another girl in the crowd and pulled her forward. Harry raised an eyebrow slightly and looked at the girl, whose face was slack except for the look of someone who wanted to die. She'd been shoved into a frilled dress that fitted her badly, and her green hair hung feather-like in her face.

"This is Gailli Würnheart," Locke explained. The green-haired girl gave a soft 'meep' and looked up into Harry's face, completely petrified, her shoulders and hands shaking. "I hope she's useful."

Harry felt his mouth drop open and emit the same sort of noise Gailli had made. He was staring at her, completely numb, not knowing what to think or even how to think. Color, disgust, and fright were rising up into his face, and the rest of the world seemed to die all around him. All that was important right now was Locke, Gailli, and Harry.

He was being given a _girl_ as a _gift_.

"Damn she gives good gifts," Rin observed tactlessly. But Harry's hands were curling into fists that shook with all sorts of emotions that turned his aura black with rage.

* * *

**Disclaimer**

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers.

**Author's Note**

I have no excuse. I'm sorry. Lost Odyssey is awesome. College sucks. I'm tired. Here's your chapter. The next one should have alcohol. Uh . . .

_collapses unconscious to the floor_

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